


DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST

by NEONTURBO_BONK



Series: DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST [1]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Danger Days (The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys), Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Family Issues, Gen, Multi, Non-Binary Pyro, Other, Smoking, Trans Scout, alt culture, pop culture references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29298780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NEONTURBO_BONK/pseuds/NEONTURBO_BONK
Summary: A kid's not supposed to shoot a gun, get kidnapped, live in the desert without parents, have last-minute surgery, and kill someone, right? So why does he have to deal with it?--a team fortress 2/danger days: true lives of the fabulous killjoys inspired work. scout-centric. frequent updates, 22k is already written! heavy influence from alt culture & general pop culture. brief cameos from other fandom characters.scout is transmasc & has adhd combined type, soldier and heavy are autistic (and more too but i can't remember right now)set in present dayrated T for language and drug usebeta read by d1sambiguation
Relationships: Heavy/Medic (Team Fortress 2), Implied Demoman/Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Series: DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151870
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	1. HOCKEY WITH THE BESTIES!!

**Author's Note:**

> cool, cool, gay person write fanfiction, alright ok alright alright!!!! 
> 
> i had this idea for a danger days (mcr album) inspired fanfiction centered around scout, so here it is! this thing's been rewritten like three times, and i've even got art for that i'll be sharing. 
> 
> i already have 22k written, and do NOT plan on abandoning this fic! if you read, a comment would be appreciated. if you dont, thanks anyways! also, i'm open to ideas, and constructive feedback is really cool too. if the writing or characterisation reads janky, please tell me! i'm just a dudeguy kid who likes to write. my writing doc is 61 pages long spare me some kindness
> 
> THANK YOU TO MY JOYFRIEND FOR BETA READING AND LETTING ME TALK TO THEM ABOUT THIS!!!!! 
> 
> IDEA MADE ON 11/9/2020

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of my biggest project yet... 
> 
> originally written on december 31st, 2021!!!!!
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation

In Boston Massachusetts, there lives a boy with hair tied up in messy ponytail and a gap in his teeth and a slightly crooked nose that might make you want to walk up to him and push it back in place. He’s tugging on his shoes and is about to step outside when his mother urges him to put on a coat and wrap a scarf around his neck before he leaves, telling him that it’s chilly outside and oh, he could catch a cold and she’d have to stay home from work to take care of him, and he wouldn’t want that, would he?

He mumbles a quick ‘no’ and tugs on both clothing articles, walking out the door. Then he immediately sheds them, dropping them into the snowbank, grabs his skates and hockey stick, and sprints off for school. The light snow dusting the sky turns into a heavier flurry. He wishes, just a little, that he’d listened to his mom’s advice.

His friends wave to him from the bike rack, with Ronnie still spinning the chain lock into place on his. Tommy rolls in on his scooter as usual, which Philip always claimed to be ‘ironic’ and ‘a piece of junk’, which Tommy usually replied that Philip had offended him, and so on.

“Whattup Jul-?” Philip says as cheerfully as a guy like Philip could. He’s leaning against the brick wall, only to get a hand clamped over his mouth.

“I told ya not to call me that,” he snarked, voice with a little more hiss to it than usual. He deflates, then shrugs. Ronnie makes note that Jeremy didn’t bring his backpack with him. “Whateva. I didn’t feel like goin’ ta class today.” he answers. “Figured it’d just be easier if I didn’t take my backpack, ya’know?”

Tommy nods along with him, and with a jerk of his head, they head for their pond. The scraggly little shrubs grow to vicious bushes and the usual saplings the school planted grow to looming birch, with their bare branches. Ronnie tries to poke at one of the plants, before Tommy swats his hand away to tell him that it’s poison ivy.

On the edge of the pond, Philip kicks away the snow covering the ice, and tests if it’s strong enough to skate on. When he gives a thumbs-up, the other three of them strap on their skates. Tommy tosses Philip a hockey stick and dumps the puck out onto the ice. The snow falls harder, thicker, now, but when’s a little weather gotten in the way of hockey?

The school’s first period bell is barely heard above their clamoring. He nearly scrapes the puck with his stick and tumbles forward, face abruptly pressed against the freezing ice. Now he properly feels the cold against his bare arms and struggles to haul himself up.

Pain blossoms through his right hand. Gritting his teeth, he looks up to see blood.

He sits up, careful not to lean too hard on his right arm. Ahead of him, Ronnie stops skating to turn around, presumably to yell at him for falling. When he sees the ice in front of him colored red, he drops his hockey stick and rushes over.

“Jeremy, hey, man, are you alright?” Ron asks. “Guys! Come on!” he wildly waves Tommy and Philip over, words thick with concern. Jeremy shuffles over to the edge of the pond and leans against a tree to inspect the damage.

Three of his fingers were cut up, but none of them seemed in any real danger of falling off anytime soon. They still bled, and he gingerly flexes them only to be met with a stab of pain. Oh, good. His glove is still in good shape - it had taken him five months collecting and recycling bottles to buy them. Damn him if he had to go through that again or ask Ma to buy him new ones, with them leaving practically paycheck to paycheck.

Left with no other option, he plunges them into the patch of snow, sighing with relief.

“Do you think we should… get your mom?” Tommy suggests, trying to be helpful. Philip stays silent, in comparison, and just longingly glances at the puck behind them. It was pretty clear he could care less about Jeremy and wanted to keep playing instead. Ronnie cuffs him on the head.

“No,” he spits, groaning. “No, don’t. She’d be so friggin’ pissed at me, could you even imagine? Like she’d prolly even ground me or somethin’, and I haven’t been grounded since I was nine, y’know? So don’t. Go looking for her, I mean.”

His breath was visible in the air, and he heaves, standing.

“Uh, guys?” Tommy cuts through the cold silence. “I think it might be too late.”

“Juliette!” a woman yells, crunching over mounds of snow. “Juliette, you told me you’d be fine, you’d wear your coat and stay safe, oh my gawd!”

“Oh my god.” Jeremy mirrors, slumping against the tree. “Stay here guys.” he whispers, quickly flinging off his skates and tying up his tennis shoes. Walking as casually as possible, he grins to his mom and lets her jog toward him. She carries his coat with her, and drapes it over his back before inspecting his face.

“Ma! I said not to call me- not to- augh!”

“Well, Jeremy, I thought your little charade would be up by now. It’s been a year, honey, even I know you can’t keep up one of your phases this long. Why, when I was seventeen, I spent hours a day adding frills to my skirts because I wanted to fit in with all the other girls at school.” she muses, fitting his arms through his coat and rolling her eyes. “I know that you skipped class,” She clicks her tongue and frowns at him.

Man, how did she always know? It was like she secretly had spies- and cameras- positioned everywhere in Boston. Whenever he went outta the house, he was gonna have to be careful now. Like Spiderman. Climb on the skyscrapers and hop to the hockey pond there, but with his luck, a helicopter would descend on him and Ma would chide him while he hung precariously off the edge of a windowsill. Last time he’d snuck out was when he leaped out his window after dinner and booked it to the arcade to mourn the loss of his favorite cabinet machine. He’d been back before midnight, too, and in the morning he was grounded.

“They’re doin’ square dancin’ in gym today Ma, I didn’t wanna go.” he frowns, hiding his numb and bloodied fingers in his coat pocket. She cups his cheeks in her palms and sighs.

“Well, Jeremy, in my honest opinion I think you should try to form friendlier relationships with your teachers,” she grumps, returning her hands to her hips. “Maybe they’d help ya with that reading problem o’ yours, but you never let anyone talk to you about that.”

Behind them, Tommy squawks indignantly and nosedives into the ground, saving him from having to answer. Ma scrunches her nose and jerks her head up, while Jeremy gives a panicked, lopsided grin. The bush they were hiding behind rustles again, and Philip stalks out with a glower on his face.

“He punched me! Philip punched me!” Tommy screams, pointing at the culprit. Jeremy stares to them, as if asking for an answer, and Ronnie lifts a finger to point too when Tommy looks urgently at him. They say nothing else, save for Philip’s grumbling.

“What am I gonna do with you?” she purses her lips.

* * *

“I just don’t think it’s fair, is all, wasn’t even theirs fault that I got my hand all cut up, c’mon! I mean, I tripped an’ fell, an’ Ron went to help me n’ all, c’mon, please?”

His mom sits primly at his desk, staring at him sprawled out on his bed. The school bell rings. He groans, sits upright, and draws the covers over himself. The steady glare his mom gave him was unnerving, he decides, and turns his face away from it.

She rises and briskly walks out his door, but not before fixing him another disapproving stare and shutting the door.

It’s messed up, he thinks, that she thinks she knows everything about his life. Like, who he was supposed to be friends with, and all that crap. Claimed that Tommy and Philip and Ronnie were ‘too dangerous’ to hang around and that he was ‘running with the wrong crowd’. It was just a hockey accident, is all!

Jeremy loses himself in his thoughts for a little while. The silence in the house doesn’t last long though, and Wess leaped into the room. He slings his backpack against the wall and hops into the chair at Jeremy’s desk. For a few tentative seconds, Wess leafs through the small pamphlet that Ma had forgotten to take with her.

“Woah-hoah, seriously? You’re going to-”

“Shut your friggin’ mouth,”

“Where’d she even get the money for that?” he asks, creasing the pamphlet into a paper plane. Jeremy sighs as he catches the plane in his hand. With the door left ajar, he can hear Dylan and Rowan arguing over whatever’s left in the fridge. Adam dashes by soon after, poking his head in the doorway and then running to lock himself in the bathroom, presumably to take up the shower for another hour.

He fixes Wess with a death stare.

“It ain’t any of your business, y’know. It’s mine, an’ you weren’t even supposed to see that in the first place,” he unfolds the pamphlet and rescans the text. “An’ especially don’t tell Terry - he’ll freak and we’ll all hafta deal with him squawking ‘round the house.”

Wess shrugs and mimics what he’s saying in a ridiculous baby-voice, then spins the chair to his side of the room. Jeremy takes that as a yes, and huffs air out his nose. Man, fuck this.

Getting transferred to a different school was fine, yeah, at least he’d be in the same district. He could still hang with his friends, albeit in secret, but in a different county? Plus, he didn’t even know how he was gonna get to school that way. He couldn’t run, nah, that’d take hours. He couldn’t ride his bike or skate either, because Ma said that you had to go through a pretty shady part of town to get there (and he’d said he’s held his own in worse, he’d be fine, but oh, wouldn’t it just be better to not do all this and just please leave him be in Bigelow Middle School?)

The hockey thing was just an accident. Same as when they left him in Chuck E. Cheese after hours. Same as when he almost fell off multiple stories when goofing around with him. Same as when he fractured his foot. His friends cared about him, for sure, even if Philip was especially mean to everyone and could never get his name right whenever he saw him.

Tommy, for one, was pretty cool. He had this funny way of talking where he enunciated every word like it was his last, and the way he rides a scooter to school everyday and carts it back home was pretty admirable. Ronnie, on the other hand, never talked much and got up to weird stuff on his own. Last year, he’d somehow dropped down from one of the vents into his science class and ended up burning his hand on a hot plate.

“Hey Wess, do you think-” he begins, only to find him already gone and the door gently swinging.

Well, whatever. He could figure out how to wedge his window open later.


	2. TRIGGER DISCIPLINE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> scout die! scout SHOOT!!! SCOUT GET KILL BY ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
> 
> originally written on january 6, 2021. 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (i love you MWAH)

Idle music plays softly from the radio, and it’s enough to drive him insane. It’s the same fucking loop of piano notes, and he knows it’s meant to make you feel calm or whatever, but he was anything but. Already Ma had told him to stop bouncing his leg four times.

“Aw, please? Can I change the station?” he asks, brows raised in hope.

“No.” she answers simply, and he deflates. The mood darkens once again. “You know I can’t handle the type of music you listen too. I like my ears as they are.”

Jeremy groans and slumps against the back of his chair again. The back of the car is packed with luggage - more than he needed, but Ma had insisted- ordered, that he overpack. What if his clothes got all wet coming in sometime and he didn’t have the time to do laundry, hmm? He’d only harrumphed in response and added another Sonic the Hedgehog shirt to the suitcase.

There were more scarves than he thought he owned stuffed into one bag, and more socks than he had ever seen in one place.

After some careful consideration and a lot of complaining from him (no matter how hard he tried, she refused to let him stay, and Tommy had told him to kick ass for him before he left), they’d decided that he’d be going to some fuckin’ boarding school with wicked food, but asshole students.

He even missed Dwight a little, even though the skinny guy in glasses dressed like he was going to a seminar everyday and pretended he was better then everyone because he took one class on how economics worked, which nobody even needs (seriously, who needs economics?).

Really, what could you expect from a boarding school? Either it’s filled with rich kids or smart kids or god forbid both, who thought they were better than you. And they talked weird, too. Away from Boston, he was sure his accent would stick out, and he could already see himself getting shoved around a little for saying ‘bubbler’ instead of ‘drinking fountain’.

So yeah, no way was he gonna find someone cool enough to hang out with him. He was the coolest. Mega cool. Awesome cool Jeremy.

A few hours later, they pull up to an impressive-looking building (with impressive-looking statues, impressive-looking grass, and shitty-looking kids) and suddenly he’s struck with a bout of self-consciousness.

Nobody pays them any mind though, to his relief. It sucked that Ma just had to transfer him in the middle of the year. He knew how complicated that was, and he knew that it’s for his own good or whatever, but he can’t help but feel a little dejected thinking back to his friends.

His luggage clinks against the brick pathway lined with bushes. It’s around afternoon, he thinks, and mentally facepalms for not taking his phone out of his suitcase when they emptied out of the car. At the end of the path, a stout woman wearing a navy blue suit steps out to wave them into a small building. The principal, he thinks. Did they have a different name in boarding schools?

The principal has thin gray hair curled into a a bun and wrinkles dotting the corners of her eyes that crinkle up when she smiles. Despite that, he still feels uneasy. Something about the smile was very obviously fake, and the way she holds herself - back straight and rigid, feet placed close together, screamed business. But he supposes that’s fair, since she’s a principal, and he’s a transfer student coming from a shoddy school in Boston.

“Well. I’m Principal Merrithew,” she begins, sitting in one of the red armchairs. “I think we can all look forward to a great year for Juliette-”

“Jeremy.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can think, and then both sets of eyes are on him.

“I mean, I’d rather be called Jeremy, this school’s-” he falters halfway through, realising that he had no idea how he wanted to continue that sentence.

Principal Merrithew scrutinizes him for a few seconds that felt way too long, and finally, sits back in her chair and clears her throat. “Alright, Jeremy. I guess so. I can’t say the same for the other students.” she finishes with a slight glare in her eyes. Next to him, Ma visibly sighs.

“-and here’s the schedule, as well as room assignments. I take it that’s that, then?”

Jeremy nods thickly, grasps the papers too tightly in one hand, and shuffles out with Ma trailing behind him. The air’s turned sour as they walk.

Ma stops and gives him a tight hug. She glances around and kisses him on the forehead too, before turning away. Right. Okay. She had to leave, duh. Uh.

Lamely, he offers a goodbye wave.

He drops off his things at the dorm (which is filled with too many plants for anybody) and then sneaks off into the showers.

With the door to the communal bathroom safely locked (which probably violated some code in the thick handbook he’d passed on the way here), he picks up the pair of scissors. Bright pink, meant for cutting paper more than cutting hair.

Whatever. He wasn’t going to be seeing his mom anytime soon, so why would she know or care?

Carefully, he gathers up the back of his hair and snips it clean off. Well, clean off was an exaggeration. No one ever tells you how hard it is to cut big chunks of hair with craft scissors. But he carries on, shearing away his orange hair until it’s short enough to just barely cover his ears. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. He examines himself in the mirror. It’s a little uneven, but fuck, man.

A quick sweep and shower later, he walks out of the bathroom in a blue jacket and white t-shirt. Now that he has short hair, he no longer has to stuff all of it into a baseball cap and hope that it won’t fall off whenever he runs.

The common room is occupied by a lot of other people, most of them reading. One person is drawing, perched on a stray office chair in front of a television that has part of its screen cracked in. Hey, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad staying here. Sure, he wouldn’t have his friends, but he’d suspected for a long time that Philip didn’t care much about him. He’d be able to see them again anyways after a few months.

There wasn’t much to do, ‘cept for mill around and hope that maybe someone would care enough to talk to him, but after a while, it was pretty clear it wasn’t going to happen. What a buncha bookworms, he thinks, and he’s right too.

On the way back to his room, he smacks straight into someone. They’re taller than him, and shrouded in the darkness of the hallway, he can’t quite make out who it is. He tilts his head up and sees the faint outline of smoke wafting out from a cigarette, but the figure shoves him against a wall and continues on. All that he’s left with is the fading sound of clicking footsteps.

Huh.

* * *

A few weeks pass by without any complaint. Classes are boring, but that’s to be expected. The people are boring, but that’s to be expected. The only person who really sticks out to him is a short girl named Feng who was okay with him watching her play Overwatch over her shoulder. She claimed that it would ‘jumpstart her gaming career on Twitch’ and then had gone off on a tangent about she should’ve rightfully gotten into the Highlander team, yea, and that it was total bullshit that she’d been banned from the forum board for harassment. So yeah, that was Feng Min. He didn’t know a whole lot about Feng Min.

Someone’s always kind enough (or too scared to speak up) to let him sit at an empty table during lunch, and once someone asks him for a pencil, but that’s about as far as he gets.

Man, boarding school was a fucking letdown.

Not once does he see the strange smoking man again, however much he wished to. At least he would’ve been less bored.

So he takes a walk outside, in March. It’s raining and the sky’s a dim shade of stormy gray and water muddles up his steps. An ermine skitters across the grass and squeaks once, twice. A flock of birds fly frantically out of a tree.

And then a bullet grazes his knee.

At first, he stands there shock still for a few precarious seconds. Alarms go off in his head, and all he can think is shit shit fuck shit fuck shit shit shit- before his legs move into action and he starts to run like hell.

Another shot fires behind him, hitting the wall he was about to lean against to catch his breath. He sags, then continues to leg it through the courtyard. The rain whooshes past his ears, catching in his hair, and for a moment he relishes the chase and the sound of water thrumming against the ground before remembering he’s being fucking shot at.

Once he rounds another corner he’s met with the same man. Tall, with small shoulders, and a cigarette in his mouth. The suit he’s wearing is dry, despite the rain growing heavier.

“You, man, we gotta, c’mon, there’s someone-” he starts, out of breath and panting. The sound of footsteps grow closer and two more shots ring out. With a tug and a pull, he tries to get the man to come with him.

“Ah. Sh. Shh,” the mysterious man says. His voice is thickly accented, something posh and European, but he can’t quite place it. For some reason, whenever he tries to look up at the man’s face, something repels him. It’s a mystery, he decides, that he frankly does not have the time for when he’s being chased. Was this guy crazy?

A thump.

Jeremy turns to see a woman a little bit taller than him scale down the side of the school, gripping onto balcony railing for support, and then finally dropping down to the muddy grass.

She’s in a purple dress, her black hair pulled into a tight bun and black glasses framing her eyes. Dirt is streaked all over her face and her hands sport black gloves that seemed to be bloody, but the rain muddles the color and he can’t really tell. They look better suited for someone who’s scaling a steep cliff without any rope, but he guesses the school isn’t that different from one.

For a moment, he stands there dumbfounded, just looking at her with about as much graciousness as a lump of coal.

“Spy. You got everything you need?” she speaks urgently.

“Yes. Now move!”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

Him and the man sprint to the black fences surrounding the courtyard, while the woman takes honest-to-god pistol from her belt, cocks it, and then takes out another one. She spins them both and steps around the corner, firing both of them right after the other.

When she jogs back to meet them at the fence, Jeremy stares at her slack-jawed again. She merely lowers her gaze and then holsters the handguns. What the fuck.

Jeremy vaults himself up over the fence (he knew how to do that, he’d done that before, lotsa times) and watches as the other two do the same. They escort him into a parking lot he’d somehow never noticed before behind the courtyard, load him into an SUV, and then climb into the front.

The woman sticks the key in, and as quickly as they got in, the man is pushing him out, yelling something in rapid French, and his face hits the pavement with a scrape.

After a few seconds on the ground (or a few minutes), he turns and stands. The SUV is in shambles, heaps of burning metal and gas spilling out. It had exploded, clearly. Maybe a, a gas leak, or a bad engine. But the woman in purple just shakes her head at the mess.

“Uhh… shit.”

“I told you, they would have the car rigged up to something before we even got here! Maybe listen to me next time, and we would not have to ‘hit the dirt’, as you so wonderfully put it.” says the Frenchman, pinching his nosebridge.

“Shut it. For all we know they’re already following us. We gotta find a way to move. Okay?” she raises an eyebrow at the suited man, then nonchalantly dusts off her dress as if a car hadn’t just exploded into a gajillion pieces right before their eyes. “Okay.”

“Wait, lady-” he fumbles for a moment and finally says what he wants to. “Whatsit, who are, who are you guys?”

“Oh. Us. Not important for now,” she answers curtly, pushing up her glasses. She presses her lip into a thin line while inspecting the explosion, before dusting her hands off on her dress and shrugging. He sighs at that.

“Well if it helps, I do know how to hotwire a car!” he cut in helpfully. They both turned to stare at him for a moment. Then he follows up in a singsong voice. “Oh, that story. Not important for now.”

He hurries over to another car and busts open the window with an elbow. It was their turn to gape now, and he supposes it would look a little strange to see some 5’5” kid with the most uneven haircut breaking through a car window like it’s nothing. And it was nothing, really, all you had to do was slam into the edges rather than the middle (he’d learned that from his mechanic brother Bellamy- they always make the middle stronger, he’d said).

“Any of yous got a screwdriver?”

* * *

A few minutes and two broken wires later, they pile into the car. Once they turn onto a fairly empty highway, the woman in purple turns to back to glance at him and finally introduces herself.

“Miss Pauling. And this is Spy. We’ve got a lot of things we need to do, so just stay out of the way, you got it?”

“Alright, woah. What kinda work do you guys do where his name’s gotta be somethin’ like Spy?” he questions, narrowing his eyes. “An’ I’m Jeremy, by the way. Don’t wear it out.” he adds with a chuckle.

“I’m sure I won’t be.” says the Frenchman in the passenger seat. Pauling snorts. With another glance at the rearview mirror, though, she hits the pedal to the metal.

“Woah woah woah woah, wait, shit, what?”

“Spy. Drive.” she decided, voice edged with steel. Out comes the guns again, but this time he feels the cold metal of one being pressed into his palm. Miss Pauling climbs over the seat and sits next to him, propping herself against the arm. She quickly rolls down the window and nods to him, like he knew what it was supposed to mean, and fires into the black truck right on their tail. The truck stops for a minute and starts to close the distance between them.

Jeremy opens his mouth, then closes it, and finally settles with a shaky “What?”.

Geez. He’d almost forgotten that someone was trying to put bullets in him earlier. Well, shit, he’d bring them right back. With a shaking hand, he holds the gun in the way he’d seen people do during heist movies, and aims. It fires too early, almost dropping the gun into the road from how loud it is and how much it jumps in his sweaty fingers.

Oh, fuck, he’d forgotten. Trigger discipline - this much he knew, from the scenes where the novice guy would accidentally plant a bullet right in their leg because of it.

He quickly looks over his shoulder to see Spy’s thin frame draped over two seats, with one of his gloved hands gripped tight on the steering wheel and the other desperately fumbling around in a suitcase. Up until now, he’d only seen Spy about as stoic as a rock, and would’ve laughed if it weren’t for their current predicament.

Jeremy sucks in a breath and loops his leg over the window. He digs in his pocket, frantically, and then pulls out his baseball. The wind is strong, streaking against his face as he surveys the other vehicle. Someone in the truckbed has a Glock aimed right at him.

“What are you doing?!” Pauling screams over the cacophony of gunshots. He locks eyes with her and makes the most panicked, stupidest expression anyone coulda seen, and then lobs the baseball right at them.

They shoot, at the exact same time, and he nearly falls out of the car when the pain hits him. He doubles over, knuckles white and grabbing onto the edge of seatbelt. The asphalt road blurs beneath him, and the car swerves. He almost falls out the window from the vertigo, until Miss Pauling hooks him by his arm and pulls him back inside. She makes him lean against his seat and straps him back in, despite his protests. When more pain flares up in his leg and he has to grit his teeth to not tear up, he clams up.

But he sticks his head back up, just barely enough to see. The gunman in the truck is leaning against the back of the truckbed, clutching his baseball on their chest and disarmed. The victory is short-lived as the truck disappears into a speck on the highway

“None of us know first-aid.” Pauling says, then immediately averts her gaze. His bullet wound had already started bleeding, and it wasn’t pretty. He huffed.

“You suck. Why am I here anyways? I’m just a kid, I’m, I’m-”

“Yeah. Okay. I’m only nineteen. You need to get with the program, Jeremy.” Her voice was deadpan as usual, betraying nothing.

“I-” he starts. Then he stops. “Nobody ever gave me the freakin’ program!”

She gives no response, and clambers back over the seat to position herself at the wheel again. Spy stops wrangling with the pedal like it’s a bull and goes back to smoking. He doesn’t even open a window, as easy as it was.

Jeremy flips both of them the bird and closes his eyes.


	3. "LEGALLY" DEAD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i wouldnt go within a 5 mile radius of medic 
> 
> originally written on january 19, 2021! 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (I KILL YOU AND YOU DIE IN REAL LFIE)

Misha does not think there a lot of things that surprise him, anymore. This is basically a ‘nuclear wasteland’ as Tavish had said once, after they’d had a hearty meal of wet cat food and vanilla wafers. And still, some things catch off him off guard. 

So when he finds a young boy, face-down in the dirt, looking more dead than alive, he knows he has to take care of him. He gently picks the boy up, hefting him without much effort. 

Briefly, he considers that just tossing him over his shoulder like he was another load of smuggled food from Gray Gravel Co. (Medic did not mind much when he did that, but he supposes that there’s more convoluted reasons behind why). With the gentleness of a dollmaker, he nudges the boy’s head upright and cradles him. 

It feels foolish, he thinks, and he even turns on his heel to see if anyone’s watching, but of course there’s no one there. The last time he remembers carrying someone like this was back in Россия, when Bronislava was just learning how to walk and he had to steady her while Mother was busy with the stove. 

Even with his strength, he can tell the boy’s much too light. His ginger hair is long over the sides of his face and his clothes hung over his bones like a tarp. But still he walks, stepping over cracked ground and holding someone who looked no older than twelve. Once, he stops, to tug a cluster of aloe from the dirt, and continues stepping over dead plants. 

What was going to happen to him once he got back? He knows Medic is a doctor- or was one, at least, but the desert didn’t have much to offer in the way of medicine. The both of them never got hurt enough to warrant for real antiseptic or bandages, and they dealt well enough by tearing strips of cloth from their curtains. 

The tent starts to appear in the distance, and the boy in his arms still never wakes like he’d been hoping. As soon as he steps within fifty feet of the tent, however, Medic approaches him with urgency he’d never seen the likes of. 

“Ah, Misha, get inside quickly,” he says, lisping a little in his usual accent. With confusion, Misha closes the gap between him and the tent, and props the boy against it. “It appears we’ve run into some, ach, trouble.” 

“What is-” 

Medic shoulders past him with a small package in his arms. With similar efficiency to a squirrel, he tears through the box and pulls out newspaper after newspaper, to finally close his hand around a device that looked too unstable to be in any place other than a laboratory.   
Medic clears his throat with a note of finality, and just like that, he gets to work.

After a quick once-over at the boy, he notices the limp twist of his right leg. Several scrapes criss-cross each other on his arms and face, skin covered in dried mud and gravel.

Alright. He knew how to handle this. Medic tugs one pants leg up and inspects the damage - an unclean bullet wound. He’d seen dozens of bullet wounds in his time as a doctor, whether legally or not. The bullet is made quick work of, and dropped to the ground. A 9mm, he notes. Expected.

The wound is tightly wrapped in cloth. With deft hands, he makes a small incision right above the sternum, humming pleasantly. A piece of gauze is quickly pressed to the cut. 

Behind him, he can hear Misha turning the pages of his book every few minutes. In front, a fire hisses and illuminates his workspace - a modified library book cart. The night hangs in the air, but doesn’t press in on them as it had for the past week. 

Medic thumbs the piece of paper hanging out of his pocket and resists the urge to pull it out again. He’d wasted countless hours just rescanning the words over and over, Misha had to tear it from his hands and tell him that he would develop tunnel vision if he kept going this way. He was grateful, a little, that Misha couldn’t read English well enough to know what it said. 

A simple press to the jugular tells him that, yes indeed, there was no pulse. 

There was no telling how long his body had been left in the desert. The sun was harsh on someone’s body, especially after getting left out like this. But this one seemed relatively fine compared to the other bodies him and Misha had found while traveling. 

His arms are cold to the touch, and the skin is stretched over the bones like cloth being pulled taut against a wire frame. Medic makes another incision. 

The device still sits in the box. After a few minutes of holding it and examining the way it crackled like a live wire, it had shocked him with terrifying intensity. So he’d tugged on his red gloves and dropped it back into the nest of newspaper. 

He could go on and on about what he thinks the little piece of technology is, but the window of saving the boy was rapidly diminishing, so he sets back on slicing through the throat. 

When blood starts to trickle out of his neck at a speed frighteningly faster than it should be, Medic curses in German and brings up a cup to catch it from splashing to the ground. The last time he’d spilled blood on the ground, they had been hounded by coyotes all night.

The fire dies for a few seconds, flattened by a huge gust of wind. It plunges him into darkness, and then puffs back up again, weaker than before. With a sigh he shreds one of the newspapers into more manageable strips, dropping them into the fire hole. 

Minutes tick by. Misha is still reading, the flick of the pages ever present in silence. It’s accompanied by the flame occasionally spitting back at him. By now the blood has stopped, and a hole the size of a silver dollar gapes at him from the boy’s neck. 

The chip snarls as he inserts it. It fizzes for a second, like soda, and then… stops. 

He bites his lip in worry and pushes his glasses up, to see if maybe his eyes are playing tricks on him again. Still, nothing happens. 

Misha ambles over to see what the deal was, and that’s when Medic realises the half book cart-half gurney-half operating table has started squealing horribly due to his leg straining against it. He stops, takes a deep breath, rolls his shoulders, and takes his glasses off to rub at his eyes. 

“Gott,” he hisses, then lets out another string of curses under his breath. “Gott, she’s going to kill me. Misha, you know this, right? She’s going to kill me, Scheiße-”

A hand that’s meant to be comforting lays on his shoulder, and it takes him too long to realise it’s Misha trying to console him. 

He whips around and means to yell, but buries his face in his hands instead. Without another word, he waves Misha away, and settles back to work on the boy. He had to do this- he had to, otherwise she and her shady masked crony would ride in, tires squealing, and ready to slit his throat. 

Medic grits his teeth to stop his hands from shaking and tugs the chip out of his neck. Another incision. Another cut. Another line of blood dotting his skin. It was nothing, really. He could do this. He’d done harder. The child who had lost their entire frontal lobe in a freak accident at a supposedly haunted pizzeria was worse than this, right? But he hadn’t lived in the middle of the desert then and the child hadn’t been left out in the desert for an indefinite amount of time. 

An hour passes - he can tell from the moon just dipping over the sandy orange cliff, a slice of glowing white against the night. It’s muddled by a swath of black clouds and a murky-looking patch of the sky. He mutters something in discontent and drops another newspaper in the fire. 

Even after what has to be another hour crouched over the neck cavity and almost maniacally digging around in the boy’s neck find whatever magic connection he needs, no progress is made. He wipes the sweat and sleep from his forehead, making sure that he’s still awake. Pretty soon, he slumps over the cart, yawning and not wanting to admit defeat. He was a good doctor. He wouldn’t fail, especially not something as important as this. 

“Come, доктор.” At this, Medic’s head tilts up in a harsh understanding. Doktor. He takes Misha’s hand and leans against him as they head back inside the tent. Misha reassures him that he’ll take care of the boy’s body in the morning, but Medic’s face is still sour.

He unfolds the paper from his pocket, even though the words are unreadable in the darkness, and swallows the multitude of words that he wants to scream.

Jeremy wakes up with a jolt, chest pounding, and hacks something up that would rival a cat’s hairball. His throat hurts, knives and wires electrifying his windpipe, and he claws at his neck as if that would free himself from it. 

He’s about as uncoordinated as a baby horse on stilts when he tumbles out of his bed and cracks his skull against the sharp metal, and that’s when he tilts his head up to look around and is suddenly aware of the fact that A) he’s no longer in Boston and this is not his bed, B) he’s in a desert in the middle of nowhere, and C) there’s blood pooling down the front of his shirt. 

Another shock of pain seizes him and he doubles over on the ground, knees bending and clawing the ground with his hands. When it disappears as soon as it arrived, he’s left with the uncomfortable sensation of an invisible hand tickling his larynx from the inside.

The dull throb in his head swells and he coughs again, wheezing until a warble somehow makes its way out of his mouth. The warble morphs into a quieter trill, and then nothing at all. 

Whatever had been clogging the back of his throat had left, thank god, alongside the painful jumble scraping his brain. He swore he could see his synapses spark and blur his vision. Thankfully, the stars above the desert turn back into solid shapes and he sighs, relieved. Gingerly, he touches a hand to his chest. 

It comes away ruddy, wet and dark on his fingers. He leans against the table behind him, only to find that it has wheels much too late. It spins backwards and idles for a minute, then wedges itself right over both edges of the fire pit. He falls with it and is caught by the hard metal of the cart. The dying flames lick at the hairs on the back of his neck. 

With aching arms, he digs them into the ground and pulls himself to sit upright, chest heaving with effort. His elbows and knees are bruised and ow, his face was absolutely covered in scrapes. Dark half-moons litter his wrists and palms like sprinkles, some bleeding, some not. The blood beneath his fingernails tell him all he needs to know about them. Ma had always lectured him on that - she could hear her saying it now, ‘don’t dig your nails into your arms, it’ll show up when you grow up and that wouldn’t be good, mmm?’ 

He shakes off the thought like one might wrestle off a dog, and takes a few deep breaths. No broken ribs. Good. Great, actually. Now he’s sure he won’t have to worry about going through the painful process of peeling the bandages off his chest. 

To his surprise, his right leg is tightly wrapped in a pale blue cloth, dappled with streaks of blood he assumes is his own. Whoever had fixed his leg had done hell of a good job. 

When he stands, the world spins and sidelines for a minute, then gradually steadies itself. It’s jarringly real then, to him, that he really is in the middle of the desert and that he did really get shot in the leg. He itches to tug off the bandages, but instead settles with just picking at the fraying threads. 

His throat is parched, and with the absence of the pain from before stabbing into his chest, the cold starts to seep into his bones. And fast, too, it’s almost surreal how quick the temperature drops, leaving him shivering. Despite this, his breath doesn’t puff in the air. He does a quick one-eighty and finds the fire hole, where he’d fallen just a few minutes earlier. 

The cart is still slotted between the dirt and covering up the last few glowing coals that spark every now and then. He hauls it up by its cold metal and experimentally flexes his arms. He winces when they painfully crack.

With that done, he dusts as much dirt off his clothes as he can, and scans around the darkness for any sign of somebody. Surely anyone who had fixed up his leg would’ve stuck around. The way he saw it, once remove a bullet from someone and wrap the gash in makeshift strips of cloth for bandage, you had some sort of obligation to stay and watch your patient. 

He spies a tent ten or so feet away, barely distinguishable against the sandy cliff it leans against. Limping, he starts toward it, periodically stopping to make sure the bandages haven’t unraveled during his walking. Along the way, he gets the sense to pick up a sharp rock that looked dangerous enough. If this person turned out to be some creepy old fuck who wanted to carve his organs out or an axe murderer (or both), he had to be prepared, right? 

The tent is dark green, a mesh flap covering what he assumes to be the entrance. Heavy stones weigh down the edges and one side of the structure is patched up with a thick and sturdy-looking wall of shining duct tape. 

Okay. Okay. He’s got one shot to do this. He should open it slowly, so that whoever’s inside wouldn’t be startled by him (if anyone was in there at all), right? But if he snuck in there and was too quiet, he’d have to shake them awake to even do anything at all until morning. He’s freezing. No way was he gonna wait until the sun rose, if that happens. 

Jeremy debates with himself for what must be at least five minutes, and even crouches down to think about the best way to approach the situation. He can’t afford to be stupid and impulsive. 

He unzips the flap and steps inside and his sneakers connect with something all too soft to be the tent.


	4. TRANQ DART DOUCHEBAGGERY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i remember this one being difficult to write i hope its not difficult to READ!!! 
> 
> originally written on january 29th, 2021 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation!!!

_“AUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”_

_“AHHHH!!!!!”_ he screams back, jumping and throwing the rock at whatever was yelling.

It connects with a dull thunk and the screaming gets louder.

A tranquilizer dart whizzes right past his ear and affixes itself into tent behind him. He screams, again, and books it out the tent. Dropping into a slouch, he hunches his shoulders and presses his back against the cliff, breathing hard. God. Fuck. What?

What the hell was that?

He stays there for another few seconds, paralyzed with fear and trying to catch his breath. His heart is racing and threatens to leap into his throat. This is, undoubtedly, without question, the part when they kill him.

A man with tangled black hair and large spectacles runs out of the tent, stares right at where Jeremy had woken a while ago, and then turns on his heel to face him.

“You,” he says, voice more surprised than ready to murder then he’d expected. “You’re alive.” It was also more German than he’d expected, nasal and pronounced.

From up close, he can see the slight glaze in the man’s eyes, from behind his glasses. Along with the nonsense he’s babbling (that Jeremy assumes is German) and the fact that he’s wielding a jagged, bloody bonesaw, he declares in his mind that this guy is fucking insane.

He’s right, he totally wanted to carve his organs out and to axe murder him.

Jeremy wills his legs to move, to do anything. He’ll deal with just even a weak kick or a feeble attempt to run away, but they stay rooted to the ground, unmoving. The tip of the tranq dart sticks out from the tent wall, as if watching him with an invisible eye.

The tent rustles again, and a giant that looked more bear than man strolls out. Great. Not only was he gonna die, there’s a chance he’s gonna die by getting his head crushed between someone’s hands like the way basketballs explode when you pump too much air into them. With the bald guy here, he makes the German look like completely harmless.

“Hello. My name is Mikhail,” he says, to Jeremy’s surprise. He cranes his neck to make eye contact with the taller man. Mikhail turns away, obviously uncomfortable, which strikes Jeremy as odd. “Calm down доктор. Boy is alive. Yes?”

His eyes dart from Mikhail, then to the man Mikhail called ‘doctor’, and connects the dots. The German- who was now tugging on an old-fashioned beige coat over a brown suit vest- was clearly some kinda medical guy. And Mikhail had spoken with an unmistakable Russian accent, which, duh, he was the most Russian-looking guy Jeremy’d ever seen.

“Yes, yes, well-” the doctor stops struggling with his coat and instead lets Mikhail button it for him. “Well. It is fascinating. You were dead, as far as I knew, for at least a day. And Misha brings you over and I know I just have to operate on you, and you were dead! Your heart was not beating, you would not move, you were dead!”

A feeling of nausea settles itself in the pit of his stomach. This guy sure liked saying how dead he was, which he didn’t even remember, at all. The last thing he could recall was leaving his room by hopping off the balcony of the common room and then taking a walk through the rain, and then someone shooting at him and a woman named Miss Pauling and a smarmy Frenchman named Spy ushering him into an exploding car, and then him actually getting shot, and then getting buckled in by Pauling like his mom would buckle him in when he was five, and then falling asleep.

What the fuck? Had that actually happened? Do fever dreams get this specific?

“It is, as Medic says, ah, batshit to fucking of crazies,” Mikhail crosses his arms and smiles, proud of himself for remembering. Jeremy stands there, still shivering from the cold. Half his brain tells him that the doctor’s lying, he never died, he’s still alive and he waves his hand in front of his face just to make sure that he’s really real and there. People didn’t just come back to life, did they?

The other half of his brain insists that that he did die. That his heart actually stopped, and that the doctor had spent hours slicing into his chest like it was some sick game of Operation.

And weirdly enough, it doesn’t bother him. Maybe it’s because he’s just woken from beyond the grave (or, actually, beyond the pseudo operating table/library book cart/cold slab of metal that literally felt like when he slipped in the bathroom in sixth grade on a paper towel and ended up breaking his arm), or maybe it’s because he can still feel blood slowly soaking the cloth cloaking his injured leg.

“A-ah, alright, don’t move. I am the Medic,” the German declares, clearing his throat and wiping his hands on what might’ve been a towel at some point in its life. When he tugs on shiny red gloves with a grumble, Jeremy balks.

“Okay, woah, shit, do not point that thing at me!” he ducks down and darts through an opening under Medic’s arm. The doctor whirls around and nearly slams into the rock wall Jeremy was just leaned against a moment before.

The escape is great, it’s awesome, he’s running and the wind is at his back and ooooooh FUCK. He looks behind him to see Misha, with an iron grip on the back of his hoodie. Usually he would’ve been scared, but the giant looks like he’s suppressing a laugh to be nice and sets him down with about the gentleness of a lamb.

Jeremy takes off his sneakers the minute he lands and stretches his legs.

The sand is cool against his feet, thankfully, and while Medic hurriedly shoulders back into tent, he filters his hand through it. Misha quirks his eyebrows when Medic sticks his head out, whispers something, and kneels next to Jeremy.

“You don’t gotta get all up in my face, man, c’mon, a guy’s gotta have his personal space and you’re lookin’ at me like you’re gonna cut me upon again, do ya stare at everyone like they’re a pile of stolen organs? ‘Cause you’re bein’ real, real-”

A jab to his throat leaves him scrofing and pawing at his neck until the scraping feeling goes away. Medic makes a noise that kinda sounds like ‘hmmph mghrk’ and outstretches his hand again. Jeremy wishes he still has that gun that Pauling gave him in the car.

Wait, when was that anyways? He’d opened the window, used his pro aiming skills, and saved them all by throwing a baseball at that guy’s face.

Then he got shot in the leg and Miss Pauling dragged him back through the window after he’d almost made out with the concrete and turned into spaghetti soup. And then Miss Pauling was like, ‘ayaaya blaalugh hg oo’ and he fell asleep. He doesn’t even think he can remember if the window was ever closed or not. Also, Miss Pauling gave him a gun. He remembers that part.

Jeez, it’s kinda embarrassing, now that he really thinks about it. He hasn’t really thought of much since that whole ordeal. What the hell was he supposed to tell Ma when he saw her again?

He decides to use his superior ability of not thinking to not think about that.

Something in his chest coughs once, twice, and reaches out to grasp his lungs. Another shock of pain fries his insides and wrings out whatever parts that haven’t been injured, scraping a wrench against his stomach.

Misha asks him if he’s okay. He sneezes and it’s gone, again.

“Yea, I’m, hahahah, yeah, I’m fine.” Jeremy mumbles, shaking his hair around. Somewhere in the past thirty seconds, Medic had gone back into tent. He comes out with a notepad and a pen that has a smiley face attached to the end of it.

“Well. I hope you are feeling well, because there’s not much more I can do for you.” He places them deftly on the ground, the way someone might put food in front of a dog. “Err, write down any problems and feelings you have? And tell me if something interesting happens.”

Jeremy isn’t entirely sure what he means by ‘interesting’, but it doesn’t sound all too great. He stuffs the pen in his pocket and the notepad in his other pocket, standing.

* * *

It’s not awful living with Misha and Medic.

Sure, there’s those two (dozen) times where he’s considered escaping and actually went through with it, only to run back after a few hours, lungs heaving from the dry air.

Not the same as back in Boston, duh, but after the first few days off rocking and pacing just do to something, he finally realizes that wow, he might not see Ma again, huh?

Which is fucked up, but he doesn’t really want to think about it. Misha listens to him whenever he’s reading. It doesn’t look like he’s listening, but he always responds to him afterward with something thoughtful. Medic is more work-obsessed than the rest of them combined, and dedicates himself to dissecting whatever new animal Misha has managed to trap.

But it’s not that bad. He eats enough, there’s surprising amount of edibility among desert creatures. He can’t take a shower or anything, but that’s not all that different from back in Boston. He misses his Ma and brothers though. The bandages are dirty enough that it just feels natural to him and that he shouldn’t take them off, ever.

He eats a prickly pear for the first time. That’s pretty cool, at least.


	5. DOGFOOD SOUP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we are GETTING TO THE BEST PARTS!!!!! awkward intros MOVE ASIDE BITCH 
> 
> orignally written on february 1st, 2021! 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (motherfucker ultimate)

**YEARS LATER**   
**BUT NOT MANY**

He’s almost out the door when Medic grabs him by the collar and tugs him backwards a little.

“Hey, what’s all the hold-up? I wanna do some, some runnin’ okay?” He protests. He slumps forward and waits for whatever Medic wanted to berate him on this time.

“Nothing, nothing,” he clicks his tongue like that’s all he had to say. Jeremy groans and leans against one of the poles holding the tent up. “Take this with you.”

Medic tugs a black, blocky cap over his uneven hair and grins widely.

It shades his face enough that he doesn’t have to look at the ground when he’s running. It’s better than stealing Medic’s shoe polish and smearing it under his eyes so he can even see anything without the sun glaring into his retinas.

“Hah, hey, thanks doc. Us whiteboys gotta stick together!” he declares, dashing away and laughing when Medic blinks twice in confusion.

He does his usual loop around the rock and past the tent again, going until he reaches the deserted road. It’s always empty, and the single lonely sign on the other side of it is covered in mud. It’s so dirty, none of them ever bothers to try and clean it - they were in the middle of nowhere, and that was enough of a description, wasn’t it?

He’d already asked Medic a long time ago if there was any way to leave, and predictably, the answer had been ‘no’. They have no car and he’s not even sure if they can drive. There’s only enough food to last until one of Misha’s traps caught something, so it’s not like they’d survive even if they decided to walk.

They get water from anyone who turns up on the road, dead, and it happens often than he would’ve thought. Usually hikers who trail along the concrete after they get lost, hoping to see even a small town if they walk long enough. Jeremy doesn’t collect their things. He saw one once and told himself to just double back to tell Medic if he passed one while running.

The road is too long and he knows, too, from following it for an entire day before getting back to the tent and having Misha fuss over him for being gone.

Mostly, it’s just boring. It’s boring being stuck out here with nothing to do except for run and draw and talk to two people. And they’re not even that interesting, too! Misha usually ends up repeating his story of being in Russia with his family- he’s heard it a thousand times. And Medic offers nothing interesting except for the occasional remark about… past surgical operations.

Either way he deals with them, because it’s not like he has a choice. They’re taking care of him, he thinks, uneasy. They share jokes together while eating. He doesn’t have to wake up pained every morning because of the bandages over his chest (Medic took care of that a long time ago).

Eeh.

He crosses the road and skids to a stop once he sees a bird. It’s completely white and out-of-place, picking at nothing in the ground.

There’s not a speck of dirt on it, surprisingly. He doesn’t think birds like this are even supposed to exist in the desert. He’s seen vultures, duh, circling their fire while something cooked, and owls that never got close enough for him to look at further.

Silently and holding his breath, Jeremy crouches to move closer. The ground has little give against his shoes. With a coo and a little warble, it takes off flying once it spots him, a good ten feet away from him.

“Hey, hey, wait up!”

It finally lands on top of a cactus, staring down inquisitively at him.

“You’re a real fucken’ strange thing, you know that? I ain’t never seen a bird like you out here. S’like you’re someone’s pet, do people keep doves as pets, I seen them at weddings and- shit, what am I doing? I’m talkin’ to a bird,” he throws his hands up in frustration, spinning around on his heel. “M’ just bored. Fuggedaboutit, I don’t even…”

Jeremy peeks over his shoulder for another look at it, planning on heading back to the tent.

A sickening crack and the dove turns. It’s neck twists into a moist collection of flesh, exposed and bloody. His stomach drops. He watches. One of its eye opens, coagulated fluid beaded up around the red shooting through it. Then another one, and another. It chirps cheerily at him.

He makes it back to the tent in record speed.

“Guys, guys-” Jeremy coughs and spits onto the ground, chest heaving. He leans over, resting his hands on his knees to try and catch his breath. “There’s-, you,” He leans up and scans his eyes across the clearing, the fire hole, and to the rocks jutting out behind it. No one’s here.

“Please,” he hears Medic say. “I just need some more time. It isn’t not fair to do this to him, especially when- he is only a child, please.”

Misha jerks his head from behind the tent and shouts something in warning. Jeremy furrows his eyebrows and jogs forward instead - they were talking about him, weren’t they?

“I don’t appreciate you keeping secrets from me! I mean, I know I’m pretty popular, but do you gotta discuss it when I could hear?” he says, waving his arms around. Medic pales. “An’ I’m not just a kid, I’m seventeen, for friggin-”

With his view darting around to look at both of them right in the face - and Misha getting visibly uncomfortable with the eye contact (he kinda was too, but that wasn’t gonna stop him from making them feel bad), he finally settles to stare right between them.

“Y-” he starts. He can’t believe his fucking eyes. “You!”

Miss Pauling gives him a deadpan stare, holding a clipboard in her hands.

* * *

“I swear, I’m gonna fuckin’ hurt someone someday,” he whispers. Miss Pauling sits on a foldable lawnchair that she took out of the back of her car. Her car. She had a car.

After getting his arm pinned painfully behind his back and receiving a glare from everyone, he’d sat down within the shade of the rock face. He watches her now, boredly scrawling whatever stupid analysis report she had on him into the clipboard. He’s beginning to think it might be an extension of her arm, with how much she carries it around.

“Well, Jeremy, I think I owe you an apology.”

“Yeah no shit lady! It’s been- what- two years? Two years an’ I haven’t see my Ma, I had a gun pointed at me, don’t think I’ve forgotten that,” He’s quick to get to his feet and jab a finger right at her face. She blinks momentarily in surprise and then resumes her normal expression.

“Whatever you have to say to me, talk fast. All that stuff, and dropping you into the desert, was something that had to happen. You’re involved in a-”

“What, what, a pyramid scheme? Am I secretly a nuclear alien baby? Are you gonna kill me?”

She purses her lips and stands up, pulling a collapsible whiteboard from the back of the car and a marker along with it. Pushing up her glasses, Miss Pauling cracks her neck and begins to write. A small man in a suit quickly forms.

“This is Gray Mann,” she says while tapping the drawing. “Over the past two years he’s been buying up everything in California. Companies, housing, storage units, and he pays small businesses enough for them to close down.” With a flash of her hand, another two men appear on the board, both in wheelchairs.

“And these… are Redmond and Blutarch.”

“Red n’ Blu.” he says.

“...Right, well, they’re both the owner of the biggest weapons manufacturer in the country.”

“And?”

“And they died yesterday.” She folds her arms in front of her chest, ignoring the look of confusion he gave her.

“Redmond was… our employer. This,” Misha takes a deep breath in and leans forward to grab a whiteboard marker. “Is Sasha. My gun. She is gone now.” A shockingly well-drawn minigun is now on the board, alongside some other things. A drawing of the Russian himself in a vest next to Medic in a beige coat similar to the one he was wearing now (minus the cloth that looked burned away).

“Your mother has ties with both Redmond and Blutarch, and there was a way you could be used in a way that wouldn’t be good for the survival of anyone. Their companies had an underground weapons testing facility that couldn’t be leaked to anyone.” Pauling stated.

“And no one wanted to tell me this before?!” He’s close to knocking over that stupid lawnchair. Maybe he will. “You coulda- coulda- dammit!”

“The reason I’m here today is, well, we’ve assembled a team.” She notices him eyeing the lawnchair and sits back down. “They’re not the best, or the smartest. I’m sure one of them can’t even read, but I think you’d fit right in with them.”

Ouch. She sure was right about that. How did she know he couldn’t read?

“You, Misha, Medic- and four others. We can’t leave this desert, Gray’s got eyes everywhere, and everyone’s safer here anyways.”

“So whatsit, hey, wait, why would I even go along with this friggin’ thing anyways?” he raises an eyebrow.

“If all goes according to plan, you should be back in Boston in six months.”

“Huh,” he frowns. That’s not too bad. He’s already been here for two years, another six months couldn’t hurt - and this meant there was a guaranteed way that he’d be seeing his family again. The only way he could leave the desert now was by stealing the car and driving away, and he didn’t know how to drive. “But, but, what’re we even doing?”

“It’s just… a backup plan. If things go wrong,” she smiles as reassuringly as possible, which is not very reassuring. He looks at the ground. “Gray’s been dropping things into this desert, and I need to be here to monitor it.”

“Alright.” he says, nodding his head. Six months? He could do that.

“I was hoping you’d say that, Jeremy. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.”

* * *

Soldier arrives first thing the next morning, along with the demolitions guy. The soldier is dressed in a ruddy green coat lined with fur, and wears a pot on his head. He claims it’s a ‘helmet’, and Jeremy decides not to ask.

The demolitions expert - who insisted on being called Demoman instead - had a giant sword strapped to his friggin’ back. Yea, right? He can’t believe his eyes when he slides the entire thing out with a satisfying ssschk and waves it around.

Demoman’s always wearing that ratty tanktop, kilt, and boots that look way too warm for the desert. It doesn’t help that the guy’s always drunk, too, from what he can tell. And only has one eye. Wait, was he even certified to work with bombs?

Before he talked to them, Pauling had told him not to share his real name, and to just go by ‘Scout’ instead. Turns out that rule had no punishment at all, judging from how he now knows Demoman’s real name is Tavish Finnaegan DeGroot (which is a stupid name anyways, what the hell is wrong with Scotland?).

He learns that Soldier can’t control how loud he yells in the morning and that Tavish would rather get drunk again than go through a hangover and be sober. Fucked up.

The two called themselves a package deal, with them both loudly exclaiming ‘where he goes, I go!’ and then falling over after Tavish dropped his beer and them dove to the ground to try and catch it before it smashed into a million pieces.

Soldier is Boots, Demoman is Bombs. It makes enough sense.

After two days, the Sniper nearly crashes into the tent with his camper van. It’s a big, ugly thing, and he makes fun of it once before Sniper nearly puts a machete into his neck, grumbling. Jeremy decides not to tease that guy. Ever.

Again, he briefly considers stealing it, but he’s pretty sure the guy used to drink his own piss back in Australia. Who knows how bad the van smells?

Despite Sniper’s violent nature similar to a wild animal, he’s dressed nicely in a blue shirt, brown vest-jacket, and flared pants that seem more fit for a New Yorker than an Australian assassin. A hat, heart-shaped glasses, and patterned bandana cover the guy’s face.

Miss Pauling sets up another tent for them to sleep in. He still stays with Medic and Misha, even though it’s pretty cramped in there, in fear of Sniper pulling a weapon on him again. And there’s a picnic table! Even so, with everyone’s arrival, there’s more food for them to eat now. He can finally kiss goodbye to toasted lizard every few days and say hello to… dogfood?

Eeeh. At least it tastes good with horseradish sauce.

“Hey, didn’t Pauling say there was gonna be seven of us? Why’s there only six? It’s been a few days since Sniper almost killed us with his car- ow!” A glob of ketchup misses his can of dogfood when Sniper jabs him in the side. “That hurt, man.”

“I got no clue,” Tavish hiccups and lifts his head off the table. “I think we shouldn’t care about it. Not like we’re gonna be doin’ anything important anytime soon. Hey, why’s everyone here anyways? Shouldn’t we all be home with our families or something?”

“There is no greater family than the call of war.” says Soldier. He’s sitting with his back ramrod straight and clutches the dogfood so tightly Jeremy thinks the can’s about to shatter.

“I don’t wanna talk about it, man, why’re you here then?” he mutters.

“My mum threw me off the couch one day an’ said ‘don’t come back here until you’ve made a man of yourself’!” he squeaked out the last part in air-quotes. “Then when I banged on the door an’ threatened to blast the windows out, she just goes ‘are you a man yet, Tavish?’ like this is some sorta game. Anyways. Not a big deal, yunnae?”

“Tough shit dude,” he says, for lack of anything better to say. “My brothers used to do that- got seven of em- would toss me out the window and not lemme back in ‘till I found a way to break in. My Ma didn’t like that, but she was always at work anyway, so she didn’t see it.”

“Ye look like you’re about fifteen, lad, I dunnae think you’re cut out for this type of job.” Tavish laughs and runs a hand through his frizzy hair. “Though I wouldn’t put it past Miss Pauling to hire a kid. I hear she got started in this field when she was only twelve.”

“I ain’t fifteen though,” Jeremy glares at him and looks over at where Pauling is, sitting on her chair without a care in the world. Clipboard, check. “I’m seventeen, I’m practically a man!”

Jeremy moves to take the bottle of horseradish sauce and empty the last drops into his can.

“That is disgusting.”

“AUUughg!!” he yells, jumping five feet in the air and turning to look behind him. “What the fuc-”

“Hello,” Spy hisses with contempt in his eyes. The Frenchman brushes dust off his suit. “My apologies, gentlemen.”

Miss Pauling climbs out of her car and tucks her pencil behind her ears. The clipboard is still in her hands, as expected. “Sorry. He’s been here all along - I should’ve mentioned. This is Spy, Jeremy already knows him, Spy, you already know everyone. Alright? Okay.”

Her exit is as quick as her entrance.

“I’m guessin’ you won’t tell me any more about leaving me alone in the desert for some freaks to find me than Miss Pauling would.”

“For once in your life, you are right.” Spy hums, and disappears.

Sniper pales. Soldier’s head shoots up so far he thinks it might’ve left the atmosphere.

“The fuck?!” he squawks, swivelling his head around to see where he might’ve gone.

“Right, then,” Sniper mumbles, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I say we fuck Spy and-”

“What?”

“What? No, what the hell? I say we never be friends with Spy and just let him do his own weird thing.” Sniper finishes, enunciating his words. Jeremy chuckles.

“That’s what I was planning on anyways,” he finishes the last of his food and tosses the can into the trashcan (which is really just a bucket that Soldier was adamant on keeping, until Pauling told him she’d remove him from the team). It clangs inside. “Ayhey! Score.”

“Besides, I don’t needa worry about some freak anyways,” He hooks a leg over the picnic table and stands. Soldier makes a sound of protest.

“We should always be on the lookout for intruders! And I don’t trust that man one bit. Ev  
eryone knows France betrayed America in the Revolution.”

“Yea yea, whatever,” Jeremy brushes wood splinters from his pants. “You do you pally.”


	6. YEEEEHAWW!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOW!!!!!!!! 
> 
> originally written 2/3/2021 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (Let's fight.)

Eventually, the mutated bird is the least of his worries. Soldier forces them all to wake up just before the sun rises - he claims he has a ‘built-in war clock’ to function like this. Spy is nowhere to be seen, as per usual, and most of them liked it that way.

Misha’s traps start catching less and less things. When he comes back to camp after checking them once, carrying a snake with a leg, that’s when he begins to realise something’s wrong.

Pauling reassures them it’s all fine, just a part of normal procedures, that Gray is just leaving nuclear waste in the desert-

“WHAT?!”

He swears his eyes almost pop out of his head. “Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re kiddin’ me. Nuclear waste? Seriously?! We’re all gonna grow an extra eye and fins before we get outta here- what if I die, Pauling? Nuclear waste is serious shit, have you seen Chernobyl? It’s not like we’re equipped in hazmat suits and gloves either, I’m wearin’ a friggin’ t-shirt! You expect me to, to- well, I don’t friggin’ know. Just tell me how you thought this was a good idea in the first place!”

“I know this is alarming, Scout, but we have regulations in place that prevent all of us from getting sick.” she states in her matter-of-factly way. No biggie. No big deal, okay. Nothin’ wrong with a little radiation in your bloodstream.

“In fact, we’ve tested people with nuclear radiation before. They’ve turned out fine.”

Jeremy pales. “You expect that to make me feel any better?”

“Well, yes.” Miss Pauling goes to write something down on her clipboard. “It isn’t like you’re going to get a limb taken off or anything. If you have any more questions, ask Medic. He was more involved in those experiments.”

Man, Medic? He knew that guy was cruel, but human testing? He seems more like a mad scientist than a doctor sometimes, with the way he smiles and carts around that terrifyingly sharp bonesaw like it’s his firstborn child.

“Kay, okay. See ya.” he sighs, watching her walk away.

* * *

One week later, Miss Pauling calls them all to the back of her car.

“I know you all might’ve been pretty restless over the past few weeks,” she offers an apologetic smile. “So I’ve asked some people I know to help me out.”

“Thank you ma’am! Just patrolling the outside is enough work for me!” Soldier barks. His hand seems to be stuck in a permanent salute.

“Gray Mann has been buying up all the weapon companies within America, but I got us in touch with one that technically doesn’t exist. Oh, and we technically don’t exist either. Look yourself up, social security number, legal name, you won’t show up.”

Medic makes an appreciative noise.

“Here are your guns.”

She hauls out a crate that looks too heavy for her to lift, and then another of smaller size. Both are stamped ‘FRAGILE’ on the side, and faded lettering that spells ‘Aperture Laboratories’ in the top corner. Misha moves to help her, but she’s already cracking them open before he can lend a hand. Jeremy takes a look inside.

Pistols, expected. A few shotguns, some shoes. A grenade launcher. Jesus Christ, how big was that fucking minigun?

“Sasha!” Misha yells, and prances over to it like a small child. “Я скучал по тебе.”

More guns. Jeez. That is a lotta guns.

Tavish and Soldier scramble for theirs - two grenade launchers, and one rocket launcher, respectively. Soldier immediately tries to fire one off at the ground. He’s met with a useless click.

“Oh. I forgot to mention, we don’t exactly have ammo for the big ones yet. For now, we’ll all have to be sticking with pistols and shotguns, plus whatever else they gave us.”

Misha droops but still firmly hangs onto his minigun.

“You, Scout, will be using this scattergun. Pistol for emergencies.”

He accepts them both and is surprised when she dumps another weapon on him, a cracked aluminum hockey stick. Jeremy dumps the guns on the ground and swings the hockey stick in the air, testing its weight.

“Hey, this is the same one I used back in Boston! How’d you get it?” he asks, grinning. Even though he’s not on ice and it’s a hundred degrees here, it still feels good.

Medic is offered nothing, which makes sense. His name is Medic, after all. What kinda doctor needs to attack? Besides, that guy still always has the bonesaw hooked to his side. If he really tried, he could probably take decapitate someone with that.

And Tavish still had his giant sword strapped across his back with a bandolier. Jeremy swears he can see it glowing at night, and he wouldn’t be all too surprised either if it were haunted.

Spy appears out of thin air- it’s a regular thing now to see him just blip in and out now- and merely walks over to grab a pack of slightly crushed cigarettes from the bottom of the crate. He slips them into a container under his coat and slinks back into the shadows.

“Quit playin’ with ya knives, I can hear ‘em from over here!” Jeremy yells, rolling his eyes. Spy nasally imitates his voice in a high-pitched fashion.

“I am not playing with them.”

Ignoring him, Jeremy opts to wave his hockey stick near the guy’s face. Spy disappears.

“And we have… two more people coming in today. You should be seeing them before tomorrow morning. Be on the look out, get acquainted with them, okay?” Miss Pauling finishes dumping the contents of the second crate onto the ground. It’s full of jars and a rifle.

Well, that just about confirms the rumor about Sniper.

“Their names are Pyrotechnician and Engineer! Don’t kill each other!” she calls over her shoulder. She wipes her hands with a towel and clambers back into her car.

“Whadda we even need a friggin’ Pyrotechnician for anyways?”

* * *

“Hey, there they are now!” he leaps to his feet and eagerly points at the truck with one hand, waving everyone over with another. Miss Pauling pays him no mind, still hunched over her clipboard and writing things down as fast as she can.

It’s nighttime, with only the fire hole lighting the place up. Jeremy’s sitting on a rock, with his notepad angled towards the light so he can see. Misha and Medic make use of their chess set

“Stand back, maggots! I have to inspect this vehicle first, no communist scum allowed in my camp!” He cracks his knuckles. Misha tries to suppress a laugh.

“Yu-huh. You mean our camp.”

“This is the exact kind of communist mindset we need to eradicate! Do you hear me Scout, do you see me in there?” Soldier grips his shoulders and shakes him back and forth. “No more of that! You are American, private!”

Jeremy nods vigorously while grinning. Soldier wipes his hands on his coat and sprints to the truck, flinging open the door.

The first thing the Pyro does is launch themself through the back of the truck, slide across the ground like it’s nobody’s business, a cape flowing behind them, and completely torch the fire hole with a flamethrower that looked more scrap metal than anything.

“What!” Jeremy falls backwards, clutching his notepad and pen in one hand. The dirt is cool beneath his back. “The fuck!”

Sniper looks up from the disassembled parts of his rifle and spares him the slightest glance. “That’s Pyro for ya,” he snorts. It’s the only time the gunman’s laughed since he got here. Did it have to be at Jeremy’s expense?

“Dammit Pyro!”

Jeremy lifts himself to his feet, no thanks to anyone else in camp, and dusts himself off. The scrapes on his arms don’t sting much, he’ll deal.

A short man clicks open the door and quickly hurries out. He carries a too-big toolbox in his arms, with a monkey wrench and coil of rope hanging off his belt. The engineer, he assumes, dressed in a blue flannel, overalls, and a bright yellow hardhat. Once he shoulders past Jeremy to fuss with Pyro, he sees that one of his arms- the right one- is completely metal.

Engineer catches him peeking and raises an eyebrow at him. He shrugs back.

“I know you’ve been restless, it’s a long drive, but we gotta get everything cleaned up. C’mahn, Pyro.” he whispers, just loud enough for Jeremy to overhear.

The fire is still blazing, and shows no signs of stopping soon. He thinks he can hear the wood shriveling up way louder than before - flames lick at his shoes. He takes that as a cue to move away, and he does, letting Pyro and Engineer sort out whatever their beef was.

It almost looks like Pyro curls in on themself, but they hook their arm through Engineer’s and sit down just a few inches from the fire hole. Every few seconds they flick a lighter on and off.

“Well. I’m Engineer, y’all can call me Dell Conagher if that pleases ya.” says the shorter one. His words are drawn out and long like Demoman’s, but in way that reminds him of the South. Obvious cowboy. “And that’s Pyro. I guess y’all have probably figured that out already.”

Pyro makes a muffled sound that sounds like they’re being possessed by a demon and makes a quick series of movements with their black gloved hands. Jeremy raises an eyebrow, taking a seat a few feet away from them on the ground.

“They say it’s nice to meet y’all. I suggest to talk with them sometime, ‘cause they ain’t good at being heard with their voice. They’ll teach ya how to understand them.”

They nod along with his suggestion and momentarily stop flicking their Zippo to give a double thumbs-up.

“It is good seeing you again Engie! Your arm is gone though. Sacrifices always have to be made on the battlefield. I understand you.”

Upon closer inspection at the arsonist, Jeremy realises they’re wearing a disheveled prison jumpsuit, which would’ve been orange if there wasn’t dirt smeared all over it. A ratty cape is tied right under a blue scarf, obscuring the bottom of a scuffed gasmask. The mask is illuminated eerily by the fire.

What a weirdo. But Engineer has a metal arm that glows blue like some sort of science fiction, so he’s not gonna be questioning them anytime soon. That, and in fear of the huge flamethrower they toted.

Misha pauses his chess game for a minute and tugs Medic behind him.

“Good to meet you, herr Engineer. I have met your Pyro already.” the doctor says, holding up a burnt part of his coat. He holds a hand out and doesn’t seem disappointed when none of them shake it. “I trust you both are feeling alright after your drive.”

“Same as always, Doc. I’m used to driving for so long, just a part o’ my job. Pyro was bouncin’ off the walls so much I decided it’d be easier if I just let ‘em sit in the truckbed.” Dell laughs. “I got somethin’ for you and Heavy, though.”

Medic’s eyebrows raise.

“I’ll show ya in the morning once I got some sleep. Been driving the entire day n’ summa the night too.”

Jeremy lounges by the fire with the rest of them, watching Soldier and Tavish arm wrestle until he feels his eyelids get heavy.

“Well, what about you, son?”

He snaps his head up and wipes the sleep from his eyes, blinking twice. Engineer’s looking at him with a slight smile on his face.

“Kay, first of all, don’t call me that,” he squints and sits up straight, eyes narrowed in an accusing glare. “And I’m feelin’ fine. Kinda worried ‘bout your friend though.” Jeremy casts a sideways glance at Pyro, where they’re playing air guitar with a fireaxe.

“They’re nice, I promise.” Engineer yawns and rests his head in his hands. “Well. I dunno ‘bout the rest of ya, but I’m headin’ to sleep. You take care of yourself, alright firebug?”

Pyro flashes their hands again, rapid and quick. Dell apparently reads this as a good enough answer and climbs up into the truckbed. Jeremy assumes he has blankets in there somewhere.

With the slightest worries of Pyro setting their entire camp alight, he copies Dell and shuffles back inside his own tent. Medic and Misha are still out there, heads leaned onto each other’s shoulders, so he figures he shouldn’t bother them. They can go to sleep on their own time.


	7. LITERAL SHIT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> musik ist mein lieblingsfach 
> 
> originally written 2/5/2021
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (WHAT IS A SPINOHEX)

He wakes with a start and almost bangs his head against one of the metal poles holding the tent up. There was a noise, he heard it just a few seconds ago. 

The rest of the tent is empty. Jeremy quickly tugs himself out of his sleeping bag and shimmys his pants on so he can walk outside. Misha and Medic are fast asleep in front of the glowing coals of the fire, both snoring. Pyro lays on the ground, curled up like a cat with their flamethrower and axe beside them. He quickly steps over them to investigate.

A blast of light nearly hits him, and he can feel heat pass right by him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle in unase. It smashes into the wall behind him and bounces into a colorful display of lasers, scorching the rock. 

“What in sam hill is going on h- YIKES!” 

Dell hops off his truckbed and looks to Scout, then at a place just a few meters ahead. He climbs into the front seat of the truck, turning the key. 

“You best get your guns, boy, ‘cause we got company!” 

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Jeremy busts into the other tent and yells for them to wake up, then puts on the backpack Pauling had given him just yesterday. 

It fits snugly over his shoulders and chest. The hockey stick is poking out of the pack - he doubts that it’ll be much use against someone who can shoot  _ laser beams _ , and instead loads up the scattergun. It’s light in his hands. 

Misha’s snoring stops and turns into a war cry instead. He looks disappointingly at Sasha. Pyro’s horrifying roar is enough to get everyone’s attention. Even Miss Pauling is poking her head out of her car, her guns already in both hands. 

Engie’s trucklights turn on and they all see a group of people scattered ahead, carrying guns that look too sci-fi to be real. But then again, Dell has a glowing arm, so who knows anyways? 

A few more beams of light hit the side of the truck, making an awful hissing noise. 

Scout tries his best to ignore it and races ahead, narrowing his eyes to see better. The enemies- what? They’re dressed in costumes that almost seem too comical for the situation. Might as well given them clown outfits if they want to look this ridiculous. White masks cover their heads while underneath they look more like ravers or partygoers. 

Ridiculous. This has to be one big joke. 

He puts a spread of bullets in someone’s leg and watches as they fall face-first into the ground before retreating back to camp. 

“They’re draculoids,” Pauling says before he can even open his mouth to say anything. “Gray’s been working on a new thing that he calls ‘reeducation’. It’s like putting on one of those masks lets you…  _ become  _ one of them. But I refuse to believe it’s that simple.” 

“Dracu-what now?” Tavish is still hobbling along like he’s drunk (which, maybe he is) and is slow to react when a laser hits his shoe. “Oouch. That smarts.” 

“Get your head in the game, DeGroot! This is a military compound! We have this situation on lock, don’t we?” Soldier yells, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder. When no one answers, he says it louder. “Don’t we, maggots?!” 

Tavish mumbles a slurred ‘sir yes sir’, which seems to satisfy Soldier for now. Sniper is perched with his elbows resting on a rock, looking through the scope of his rifle. Medic hurries over to Demoman with Misha tailing him to inspect the hole burned through the rubber of his shoe.

“Wait, if they’re reeducated, don’t that mean they used to be people too?” 

It takes her a while to answer. “...Yes.” 

“Wha- whoah, woah, no way, I can’t kill someone! They got families too, don’t they?” he asks, frowning. “I mean, it’d be unfair.” 

“Listen. Scout. It’s either them or us.” She stares at him with cold detachment in her eyes. “And I’m not sure about you, but I want to live.” The pistols she’s holding both go off. He tears his gaze away from her and sees another two Dracs drop to the ground. 

The fight is over as quickly as it began and Pyro returns to camp, their axe dripping with blood. They sign something to Dell and immediately start drawing in the dirt.

“That’s nine people. Draculoids. Whatever we’re supposeta call ‘em.” Engineer observes, stepping onto the ground. “I don’t reckon we’ll be seein’ more anytime soon, huh?” 

Miss Pauling shakes her head and puts her guns back under her dress. He can see the outline of them. “You can never tell with Gray Mann. I don’t know the full extent of his plans, but me and Spy have been working on figuring it out. Small groups of people have been pushed out of their homes into the desert already, and he’s been replacing nearby towns with things he calls ‘housing units’. It’s like he’s trying to build up an empire, but for what?” She scratches her chin and then brings out her clipboard again. “I think I do have an assignment for you all.” 

Soldier is quick to react and shrugs off Tavish’s grip, standing up straight and saluting. 

“What is it Miss Pauling! I can assure you the job will be well-done!” 

“Is true,” Misha rumbles, pulling Medic away from examining Tavish. “Hold your tail with a pistol. Gray Mann is a confusing person.” When he’s met with a gallery of confused stares, the man laughs and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Ah. Must be Russian phrase then.” 

“Either way, I cannot believe you guys are just fine with killin’ people like that.” Jeremy says, wiping his hands on his pants like he killed someone himself. 

The rest of them exchange glances among themselves - some amused, some confused. 

“I told ye,” Tavish laughs, sitting down to lean against one of the tents. “He’s not old enough to do this. Only eighteen, he told me, but he looks like he should be in secondary school.” 

“You shut your mouth! I’m not a kid, I’m old enough to drive a car! I just get a little squeamish ‘bout  _ murder _ , is that surprisin’ or something?” he complains, looking around for someone to support him. “Anyone?” They’re silent. He throws up his arms in frustration. “Whatever! What freakin’ ever. I’m going back to sleep.” 

  
  


The next morning, instead of letting everyone do their own thing all day, Miss Pauling calls them to eat breakfast together. 

At first he’s thinking ‘jeez, seriously?’ because just thinking about having a dogfood fest with nine other people is enough to make him sick to his stomach. It’s bad enough they have to eat the stuff anyways, but treating it like a family meal’s even weirder. 

The picnic table has a cooler on it, the words ‘PROPERTY OF DELL CONAGHER’ stamped into the side. Dell heaves the container onto the ground and grins, opening it. 

It’s full of wondrous things. Miracles, even.  _ Real food.  _ In the middle of a nest of ice is a few containers of lunch meet, frozen chicken, and iced peas. It’s better than he could’ve ever imagined, and he almost cheers when Pyro throws out a bagged loaves of bread from the truckbed. 

“Jeez, hardhat, where you been hidin’ this shit?” he asks, through a mouthful of sandwich. Misha had been so overjoyed seeing it and prepared enough food to last them through lunch, too.

“I told you Scout, was too tired to unpack it all when I got here.” Engineer laughs, taking a bite of his own. “M’ glad Pyro’s havin’ fun though.” 

He points over his shoulder to where they’re lightly toasting bread and meat over the fire hole while flicking their lighter as usual. Scout chuckles, having forgotten last night. 

“Well, guys, you better enjoy this. We aren’t going to be able to get another shipment of food for few months. Dell just brought what he had on his ranch,” Miss Pauling pushes her glasses up and stands at the end of the picnic table, looking down at all of them. Tavish gives a sleepy thumbs-up. “Unless we go and bust out whatever supplies we can get from one of Gray’s bases. Which is exactly what we’re doing today!” she says happily, smiling. 

Pyro claps their hands together in fascination and mimics an explosion noise. 

“I’m so glad you find this fun, Pyro. I do too.” There’s not a single hint of sarcasm in her voice. “A large distance away from here, Gray has a facility meant for training workers. It’ll take the entire day’s drive to get there, but it’ll be worth taking out one of his offensive units.” 

“Will we get tae use our weapons?” Tavish inquires, suddenly looking wide awake. Soldier nods eagerly and punctuates the question with a ‘please’. 

“Aperture has mailed the facility a shipment of ammunitions which should be enough for you all to fire the big guns a few times. Grenades, rockets,  _ stickies. _ ” she muses, smiling. 

Misha looks at her with sad eyes. 

“Nothing for Sasha.” 

He sniffs and starts eating another sandwich. 

“And if you see any people who look like the Draculoids from last night, minus the mask, feel free to talk to them. It seems they’ve been devising their own way to get back at Gray Mann, not that I’ll think it’ll work though. They’re friendly enough and kind of crazy.”

“Oh, great.” Dell smiles. “I’ve been seein’ them while drivin’, thought it’d be best not to. Looks like they drink soda for breakfast and lunch.” 

“One last thing before I send you guys off.  _ Don’t engage with the Scarecrows.  _ You’ll know them when you see them.” She walks away nonchalantly, dropping a flare gun and her feet for Pyro to pick up. 

“The hell’s a Scarecrow? The way she said it makes it sound all scary. I made scarecrows in second grade for an art project.” Jeremy snorts, standing. “I don’t think fighting one would be too tricky, I mean, we took down those Dracs like it was nothin’!” 

“...You mean you should stood there and watched like a little child,” Spy rolls his eyes. The Frenchman hasn’t eaten anything since he arrived in camp, as far as Scout could tell. What a freak. “As Miss Pauling said, the best way to beat them is to avoid them entirely. I have only landed a backstab on one  _ once. _ ” 

“Seems like you’re just a butterknifer.” he retorts. 

“I am not! Knifing someone takes skill, something you clearly don’t have. I would not trust you with my knives in a padded room.” 

“Go to hell, man. I ain’t dealing with ya anyday.” 

Sniper clears his throat. The two look back at the rest of the team, and Scout smiles nervously. 

“If you two blokes are done riffraffin’, I suggest we follow Pauling’s instructions and get the bloody hell outta here.” he suggests in his usual low mutter. 

“Right, right. Kay. Someone else sit next to Spy.” 

  
  


With the team piled into Engie’s truck, they’re off. Scout sits right behind Dell, with Pyro in shotgun, and Sniper, Spy, Misha, and Medic all crammed together in the back. 

At first Sniper had tried to argue with Miss Pauling to bring his own van, and that he wouldn’t be able to focus if everyone else was there. Said that the ‘gunman’s mind’ required the optimal ecosystem, and that was when she nearly slapped him on the arm. 

Sniper begrudgingly entered the truck, but his complaints weren’t alone. Spy had the same problem and even threatened to backstab Scout if he had to be in the same vehicle as him for an extended period of time. To say the least, it’s a good thing that Spy’s so great at dodging! 

Tavish and Soldier had predictably taken up residence in the truckbed, along with all their weapons and food from the cooler. Even if Tavish tried to sneak food, Soldier’s more rule-abiding than anyone here and would probably punch Tavish in the face if he tried.

The breakfast had lifted their spirits, and the first stretch on the road is relatively uneventful. The sun steadily climbs up in the sky, and shimmers onto the ground, which looks like it’s getting thicker with more stray grass and plants as they move along.

After an hour on the road, the radio buzzes with life and continues playing static until Pyro taps Engineer on the shoulder enough times to get him to look. 

“Well, can’t have that, can we?” Dell frowns, turning the little knob. 

Scout leans his head forward and stretches an arm out to pick the radio station himself. 

“Don’t worry guys, I got this. I got the best music taste known to man. Watch,” He punches in the number of the station in just a few seconds - he knows it like the back of his hand. 

The sound of dissonant electro pierces the air, then it dissolves into vocals so overlaid with autotune they might give you sugar poisoning. 

“What,” Spy says. “The fuck is this?” 

He laughs so hard he thinks his ribs might break. A TTS voice enters the mix in the song. 

“100 gecs,” Scout says with the straightest face he can manage. 

“One hundred what?” 

Sniper stops playing around with his rifle long enough to give Scout a disgusted look. Medic and Misha are asleep, probably from the late night, and he’s surprised to see that both of them don’t wake up even when the synths ramp up.

“Turn this garbage off,” Spy hisses, pinching his nosebridge in frustration. “This sounds exactly how energy drinks taste.” 

“So you admit you’ve drank one?” Scout snorts, moving to turn the volume up higher. 

Pyro smacks his hand away and smashes the off button so hard he thinks it’ll break. They shake their head, mumble something that’s too muffled for him to hear, and wag their finger at him. 

“This is oppression. 100 gecs is literal gold.” 

“That music is literal shit, is what it is.” Sniper finally stops fiddling with his gun long enough to pull something small and rectangular out of his pocket. “Listen to this.” 

A quick wave of his hand and he pulls the bandanna covering his mouth done, putting the thing to his lips and churning out a mournful tune. The harmonica squeaks well enough despite the impressive layers of dust visible and a hairline crack splitting down the middle of it.

It hits a bad note and he drops the harmonica, scrambling to catch it before it finally lands in his lap. Sniper chuckles nervously and pulls the bandanna back over his nose. 

Man, talk about socially anxious. Sniper’s about as awkward as it gets. 

Jeremy offers a sympathetic ‘you tried’ smile and decides not to turning the station on again. It plays 100gecs 24/7 and operates solely off the funds from someone’s abandoned Kickstarter game. 

“This is what  _ real  _ music sounds like, gentlemen.” 

Spy stands and steadies himself as the truck bumps along the road. He takes a few steps between the seats, leaning over into the front to fiddle with the knobs on the radio. A catchy pop song plays. Country music. Classic rock. Country music again. More country mus-

“Hey, hang on truckie, why’re all ya presets just country music?” He squints and scrunches up his nose. “It ain’t even good.” 

“I don’t think I should trust your judgement when you think that a hundred geckos music is worth anythin’,” Dell taps out a beat on the steering wheel. “Country’s pretty good. I play it sometimes, wit’ my guitar.” 

“You have a guitar?!” Scout shoves Spy against the seat Pyro’s in to make space for himself, his seatbelt forgotten while he hangs an arm around Engie’s shoulder. “And you can play it?” 

“Sure I can. Now get off me, I’m drivin’.” 

“Right, right, okay,” he laughs, falling back to his seat. Spy finishes his business on the radio and soon a heavy dramatic orchestra fills the air. Scout’s starry expression immediately dissipates. “What is this stuff? The sixth grade band was better than this, ‘least they were actually funny. No one likes the pretentious bullcrap you got goin’ on.” 

Spy merely shrugs and shuffles back into the empty seat next to Scout. He decides he’ll let Spy sit there for as long as he wants until he causes trouble or begins to feel pissed-off. 

Then Spy brings out a cigarette from the rectangular tin underneath his coat- in a hidden pocket, Jeremy thinks- and offers it to Pyro. They grab their flamethrower from where it’s being hugged by their feet and fire a short blast to light it. 

“ _ Merci,  _ Pyro.” 

“No way you’re smokin’ that thing in here.” Dell wrinkles his nose.

The next minute, all the windows are completely rolled down and wind is shooting into the truck. It’s worth it to see Spy pop his collar up multiple times so that his mask doesn’t get wrinkled. 


	8. GAY PEOPLE (GEOPLE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took like 15 minutes to write, but man it was fuckig fun!!!!!
> 
> originally written Im too lazy to check sorry 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (Big. Kaprisun. big. caprisun.)

“D’ya really think Gray’s got this whole plan set up? From what Miss Paulin’ told me, he’s just an old guy.” Scout raises an eyebrow and leans back in his seat. “And old guys aren’t really up with that whole world domination business.” 

Sniper looks up from his gun, deadpan. “Aw, well he’s a right asshole.” 

“Fuh-real? Old people can be right assholes. Hey, Demo, can you pass me a soda?!” he yells, hooking an arm on the window and leaning his head out. Tavish flips open the cooler with one hand and tosses it to Jeremy. He nearly misses the catch - it bounces in his hand for a precarious few seconds before it’s securely in his fingers. He pops open the tab. 

Tavish cries out in frustration and he pokes his head back out to see again. He’s rubbing his right arm, Soldier looking triumphant. 

“Hey, I wanna join your guys’es arm wrestling, gimme a minute-” 

“Hah!” Soldier shakes a fist at him. “As if you could win!”   
  
“He’s right, lad,” Demo grins, offering a hand out to pull him across. “Ye arms ain’t nothin’ more than a pile o’ sticks.” Jeremy starts climbing out the window. 

“What’s he doing now?” He barely hears Sniper mumble, not even breaking concentration on inspecting his rifle (he’s always doing that, what a weirdo). Spy does nothing except give a great big sigh and hold his head in his hands. 

With half of himself out the window, wind wrinkling his already-wrinkled clothes and ruffling his hair, he carefully balances a foot on the door handle. 

The truck hits a pothole and jostles him, barely hanging on. And he thinks  _ he’s holding a gun in one hand and a baseball in the other hand and on the highway, Pauling behind him, watching him as a gun goes off and the bullet embeds itself in his leg and her pulling him back inside.  _

“Ye good lad?!” 

Tavish’s voice snaps him back to reality. He teeters so hard he thinks he might fall and the road beneath him leers in his face. He’s okay. He knows that- he knows this. 

Jeremy takes a deep breath and resteadies himself, takes Tavish’s hand, and jumps across. For a few fleeting seconds he’s airborne until Demo’s other hand catches him on his elbow and hauls him up. He flops into the truckbed and collapses, giving a week thumbs-up. 

“Everythin’ alright back there?” Engineer hollers from the front, eyes still on the road. Jeremy shakily sits up and looks around. 

“Nothing is of problem! Our unit is as good as ever to fight!” Soldier screams back with his hands cupped around his mouth. Judging from Engie’s lack of response, he seemed fine with it. 

“Man, if Pauling saw that she’d go crazy,” he laughs, tipping the cooler back upright from where it had capsized. “So who’s up for some competition?” 

Tavish sets his elbow on top of the cooler and beckons Scout to do the same. 

“You’re goin’ down, Scotty!” he says confidently, closing his fingers around the other’s. Demoman slams his hand to the lid only a few seconds after they start, and Jeremy jerks his arm back, rubbing it in pain. 

“I told ye, yer a skinny malinky longlegs. Not strong enough to even win against Sniper, I would think.” Tavish muses. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What happened to your eye?” he snarks, rolling his eyes in bitter defeat. “Blew it off in an accident?” 

“Nae,” Demo opens the cooler and takes out an unlabelled bottle of… something. “More like a wizard tookit an’ never gave it back. I got nothin’ I can give to them to make them give it back either.” He starts drinking. 

“Bullshit.” 

“It’s true! I was there. The wizard is my roommate. Was my roommate. They were a very good roommate.” Soldier smiles, gesticulating his hands about. 

“Man,” he exhales. “You guys are batshit. Hey, where’s my- oh shit. I left it back there didn’t I?” 

Jeremy shuffles to the edge of the truckbed and reaches through the wood planks surrounding them to grope inside the window. 

“Anyone wanna pass me my so- OWH!” 

A painfully accurate toss smacks it in his face right between the eyes. He quickly snatches it out of the air before it can spill or fall and takes a long drink of it. 

“BONK Atomic Punch™…” he mumbles, reading the label. “Cherry fission. Now with  _ isotopes?  _ Made with water, sugar, corn syrup,” It seems to check out. “Radiation? Where are we getting this stuff?” 

“Eeh. Not sure,” Tavish slurs, yawning. “Soldier and I - he can’t drive, so I was driving - while drunk, ye know? We passed a ruddy diner on the way here, looked broken down, but there was people inside who were nice enough tae let us sit down and piss and have a drink.” 

Jeremy nods along even though he has no idea where this story is going.    
  
“They shipped us off with something that looked just about the same as what you’re drinking, only it was purple ‘stead of yellow. No big difference. The stuff makes me want tae boke.” 

“It ain’t that bad, ya just gotta get used to the first buzz- it’s like- like-” he jitters, taking another drink and relaxing as a feeling of calm washes over him. “Like bein’ zapped, but right now I’m entering a new state of mind. Ultra-concentration. You know?” 

“I don’t.” 

He shrugs and just sips more. It fizzes pleasantly on his tongue. “An’ I ain’t old enough to drink yet- don’t call me a friggin’ kid though- so this works just fine.” 

“Oi! The hell are you doing that for, opening it here?” 

Soldier perks up at Sniper’s voice and peers in tinted window opening into the backseat of the truck. Spy is sitting, legs crossed, his fingers wrapped around a foggy glass of red wine with the cork popped open. He pulls a wine glass out of seemingly nowhere and pours himself a cup. 

“We do not drink wine here, you sissy. This is Californian soil and American land! France is full of homosexuals! I am not a homosexual, which is why I am American.” 

Spy watches Soldier retreat back to his usual spot on the truckbed, looping an arm around Demoman and leaning against his shoulder. He raises a single eyebrow. 

The truck lurches to a stop. Jeremy almost falls out, and would’ve, had he not been so insistent on holding the planks barring each side. 

“What’s all the hold-up? Don’t tell me we’re outta gas, hardhat!” he complains loudly. Instead, he hears Dell kill the engine and swing open the door. 

“All of y’alls, get out. It’s almost evening, we gotta stretch and get somethin’ to eat before we keep goin’.” he explains, moving to the back. “Little help?” 

Jeremy and Soldier push the cooler to the edge, and Dell catches it with a grunt. He hops out himself, too, and has a relatively soft landing. The ground is covered in little shrubs and dead branches, which is better than the usual dirt-grit-rocks-sand of their camp. A tangle of weeds shoots up through a crack between two rocks. 

“Holy…” 

He shoulders past Engie and sprints forward, fast as a jackrabbit, feet kicking up dust. In the hazy distance ahead he can spot several lights- colorful as can be- pointing right at the sky. 

“Holy shit guys!” he exclaims, turning around. “They got a freakin’, it’s the thing, the thing everyone’s been talkin’ about, haven’t you guys? The groups! Of people! We gotta go go go, I gotta see this guys,” 

“We cannot! Miss Pauling gave us a direct order to drive until we reached the Gray Mann’s base!” Soldier barks, readjusting the pan on his head to cover his eyes again. The sun is right above the horizon, and shines stray streaks of purple light over the distant strobes. 

“I don’t care ‘bout Miss Pauling right now,” he declares, vaulting himself over a rock and heading off despite Soldier’s complaints. “See ya guys tomorrow morning!” 

“Someone has to go watch him.” Dell says once everyone’s done tiredly climbing out of the truck. “Ain’t gonna be me. I got enough on my hands as it is,” he frowns, gesturing to Pyro. Medic is still half-asleep and half-carried by Misha, who looks at Spy. Sniper is also looking at Spy. Demoman is also looking at Spy. Soldier is tangling his fingers together. 

“I am not going to do that.” Spy says. 

“But he’s your-” 

_ “I AM NOT GOING TO DO THAT!!! I AM NOT GOING TO BABYSIT HIM!  _ Stop fucking asking me!” he screams, throwing his arms into the air in frustration. “Somebody else do it! I don’t care about him, and I never well, so  _ stop  _ asking me!” 

“Christ,” Dell mumbles. “All of you keep an eye on Pyro.” is all he says before stalking off, footfalls thudding heavy on the floor. 

Spy covers his face with his hands and breathes in, out, then disappears.

  
  


The sun starts setting once he slows to a walk, crunching pebbles beneath his shoes. The desert is dark, quiet, and it looks like the lights have turned off for now. 

Aw, fuck, that’s bright. 

A beam of light shines directly in his eyes. He stops staring at the sky and instead at the ground, holding his arms up for protection. 

“State your business, trespasser!” booms a loud voice, echoing menacingly. 

“Wh-” he stutters, shielding himself. These were the Scarecrows Miss Pauling talked about, weren’t they? He’s gonna die, right here, right now, he thinks. Nah, he knows he’s gonna die here. He should’ve listened to Soldier and not gone off on his own like an idiot. 

“Hey, dude, knock it off, they’re scared, see?” says a different voice, more high-pitched this time. “C’mon man, you’re fine.” 

He slowly takes his hands away from his face and stands, peering up at the sky. Two people are perched on a wooden balcony that looks ready to drop, attached to a tall rock face. They wave excitedly at him and direct the spotlight back towards the sky. 

“Sup!” the one with bright purple hair shouts, quickly jumping off the balcony and nearly faceplanting. “Ouch, shit, I’m alright.” They brush dried blood off their elbows and flip their hair back to look at him. “My name is Jaxon Aultimate! Feels weird seein’ a stray killjoy here, I don’t really recognise you.” 

“You really have to stop jumping off that thing,” scolds the other one. They’re both in near identical outfits - black suits, colorful ties, and sunglasses. The only difference is that Jaxon has their sleeves rolled up. “And I’m Monstrr Energy!” 

Their hair is long and neon green, curls bouncing as they slide down the rope ladder. 

“Huh, yeah, Jax is right. I have never seen you before,” They tap a finger to their chin and think. “The Zones love new ‘joys though and there is a concert about to start in…” 

“ _ Five minutes!  _ Five minutes till we’re on, idiots!” 

“Man, that’s Vultrixter. We gotta go, dude, catch ya ‘round? Maybe even at the concert?” Jax looks at him with pleading eyes, palms pressed together in ask. 

“Sure! Sure, yea. I can make it.” he smiles, shooting two finger guns at them. What the fuck is he doing. He doesn’t know any of these people. “I’ll, uh, see ya… there? I’m. Scout. My name’s- it’s Scout.” 

Internally, he’s screaming at himself. The fuck? What in the actual fuck? These people are complete strangers, and this is a  _ concert,  _ in the middle of the desert. He’s never been to a concert before, and no, the seventh grade orchestra performance didn’t count. 

“Oh, Scout. Like from To Kill a Mockingbird, right? That book kind of sucked.” Monstrr remarks, raising an eyebrow. He guesses that they’re squinting at him from behind their glasses. 

“No, nah, I uh… don’t read.” 

What? 

“Hey, that’s fine. I don’t think Monstrr can either.” Jax giggles, punching them in the arm. “Anyway, we gotta go. Witch be with you!” 

The two dash away laughing, leaving him standing there dumbfounded. Witch be with you? What’s that even supposed to mean? He’s seen Internet stuff about it, a few lines mentioning witchcraft or something. Did he accidentally stumble onto a religion? 

Eh. Whatever. 

He sprints after them for a good few minutes and then skids to a stop. All around him are merchant stands and cars, and christ, it’s  _ packed.  _ People are walking, standing, running, everywhere. Selling stuff out of the back of their vehicles, taking whatever food is laid out on the longest tables he’s ever seen. Jaxon Aultimate and Monstrr Energy are nowhere to be found. 

And everyone’s dressed differently. A group of people in trailing church robes are crowded around a plate of cake, slicing it into equal portions. Someone with liberty spikes as high as can be shuffles to a stand to buy a cup of Arizona Tea. A girl in full scuba gear- okay, this is getting kind of ridiculous. 

He can’t help but feel a little out of place as he walks, in his blue cutoff hoodie and black pants. Compared to these people, he’s about as interesting as a small pebble. 

“Yooo, hey, whatsuppers!” 

Someone with dark hair and a cape walks by him and raises their hand for a high five. He nervously slaps it and smiles. 

“M’ Raveyard!” they shout, gripping an energy drink in a neon gloved hand. “Just keep forward, you’ll get to the stage soon enough, if that’s what you’re here for.” 

He just nods and watches them skip away. 

Along the way, he stops at one of the people proudly presenting their wares. An impressively large cloak covers most of their body. They wag a finger at him and pull out a chair from the back of their spraypainted van, beckoning him. 

With nothing else to do, he sits down. They take a tape measure from under the cloak and begin to measure his feet and ankles, poking around. He raises his eyebrows in confusion. They finish, and stand to dig around in their van for a little, climbing inside. After a few seconds they present him with something wrapped in a bag. 

It’s sealed shut and he can’t rip it open. Weird.

Pressing on, the absurdity of the people around him just increases, and, surprisingly, he gets more used to them. It’s fun, being here. Everyone treats him like they’ve known him for years and it just looks like one huge party. 

Eventually a familiar song reaches out to him.

“Aaaa _ rriiiiiight _ !” someone yells. He knows that voice, of course he does. He’s heard it so many times.

“Ooohhh my  _ god LOOK  _ IT’S FRAXIOM FROM MASSACHUSETTES!!!” he shrieks, voice getting embarrassingly high. They dash off stage and a tattered, ripped curtain opens to reveal two people, both blonde and in too big t-shirts. 

“I can’t believe this, wow, holy shit.” Scout laughs, pushing past people. The crowd is getting thick now, but he doesn’t mind, it’s worth it. 100gecs, radiation tunes. 

Someone next to him shouts something that he can’t make out and shoves a can of BONK in his hand. He chugs it down, not minding it spilling all over his shirt. Some of it splashes at his feet. 

A rush of courage washes over him. He springs forward and leaps toward the stage, hauling himself over the edge. People behind him help him over, shoving him up, and eventually he’s pulled more of them onto the stage before he can think. 

Someone pours the rest of his BONK over him, music blaring out of bright pink speakers. The guy whipping his long bleached hair in time with the techno music turns around, whoops, and continues belting out lyrics. The wave of autotuned vocals crash over him like a wave. 

It’s glorious, really. He’s glorious. He wouldn’t have thought this was possible maybe ten, twenty minutes ago, but now? It feels like no time’s passed at all. Lights flash in his eyes. 

From where the curtains are drawn, he can see Jaxon Aultimate and Monstrr Energy looking at him with wide eyes. He grins widely at them, the gap in his front teeth visible. Jax shakes their head vigorously and points toward the back exit. They duck to the ground and disappear. 

A draculoid calmly walks from the curtains and across to the center of the stage. The music is still going, despite the distraction, but the two singers are being hurried offstage and everyone is quietly whispering under their breath. 

“You there,” he says, holding up his soda. “You wanna go? Huh? Wanna fight?” 

The drac is in completely white clothes this time, none of the bright bullshit back at camp. It slides a gun out of its pocket and fires two warning shots at the sky. 

“Run!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this universe the 100gecs hidden lore is that they were captured by gray and meant to be turned into dracs but it failed #KEK


	9. S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> move your body when the sunlight dies everybody hide your body from the scarecrow!!!!!!!
> 
> originally written 2/8//2021 
> 
> beta read by d1sambiguation (flavortown arg!!!!)

Everyone is screaming, and he thinks he might be too. Someone’s collapsed in front of him, blood slowly leaking out of their thigh and covering their stomach in red. He quivers and steps back, turns, books it. 

“Everybody hide!” yells someone else. He ducks behind one of the merchant stalls and counts to ten, breathing hard, staring at the sky. Behind him, back at the stage, he hears a  _ boom.  _

“I told ya it was a bad idea, son!” Dell crawls from the shelf next to him and crouches, just barely keeping his figure under cover. “What did ya do? Ya didn’t listen, almost got yourself killed, that’s what.” 

“Hardhat-” 

“Don’t ‘hardhat’ me. That right there was a Scarecrow, ain’t nobody gonna mess with them. Bombers. Gray’s modelin’ the bombs are Tavish’s plans, he up n’ stole ‘em, that he did.” 

Jeremy makes himself as small as he can be and huddles against the wood, knees drawn up to his chest. He makes the mistake of looking up at the sky, and against the bleak darkness, he catches a glimpse of a silver plane.

“Everyone  _ get the fuck down! _ ” 

It’s yelled through the speakers. The blare of a siren has started, shrieking in his face and piercing his ears. It wails while he tries not to cry. Why the fuck was he always crying? 

“It’s gonna be alright, son, just stay low. Count to seventeen and close your eyes,” Dell mumbles, patting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He breathes in, out, and starts counting. A splitting tremor shakes the ground. 

He can smell smoke, and when he opens his eyes, the sky is covered in a thin layer of ash. Even the bright lights from before, that looked like they could never be put out just minutes ago, were dark. The entire desert is silent. 

Then it happens again, another explosion shaking the earth. He squeezes his shut and holds his hands over his neck like they taught him in school. 

“We’re not gonna die here, right Engie?” 

“We’ll be alright son, I’ll-” He stops to look up at the plane flying over the stage. “I’ll keep you safe here.”

A quake judders the earth again. He clings onto Dell like it’s the only lifeline he has in this world, and maybe it is. He can’t see his Ma anymore. He can see his brothers. 

“My, my mother, you know would she’d be talkin’ to me if she were here? She’d say ‘duck and cover’, like that one cheesy black n’ white commercial, y’know?” he whispers, voice shaking. The bars of the merchant stall are rusted with age. “My name is Jeremy. I just t-thought you should know that.” 

Dell nods and lets him rest his chin on the dip between his neck and shoulder. He hugs him tight as another explosion courses through the dirt. 

Out of nowhere, a bird swoops in and hovers for a precarious few seconds. It lands next to him on the ground, despite the rocks clacking against each other. The dove looks at the two of them, hops around, spreads its wings, and flies off.

“On the count of three, we’re gonna make a run for it, alright?” Dell asks. 

He nods. 

“Three.” 

Jeremy can hear someone sobbing nearby, yelling for their dad. The voice sounds too young to be any older than twelve. 

“Two.” 

He tugs the backpack off his back and leafs through it, crouching in the darkness and squinting to even see anything. The fuzzy outlines of the bag the cloaked person gave him are reassuring. He tries not to look at his scattergun. 

“One.” 

Dell pulls him up by his hood and they sprint at breakneck speed. He has no time to fit the backpack straps over his arm and instead carries it in one arm - it flies behind him like an extension of himself. Gunfire opens on them. 

A pipe bomb lands four feet behind them. He swears it touches his heels. 

Around them, the scared eyes of other people look at them, wide and staring. Someone gripping the edge of a steel pipe yells words of encouragement and another one, who looked like they were only a kid, gave a thumbs-up. 

They hustle back to the truck in ten minutes, but it feels like hours before they reach safety. The Scarecrow leaves them alone after a while of chase, presumably flying to the stage again to finish up its work, whatever that might be.

Jeremy leans with one arm on the truck for balance and dry-heaves. Then he throws up for real, falls to the ground, and coughs. 

“I shoulda not drank all that BONK,” he giggles, rubbing dirt from his eyes and nose. “Sup guys?” 

Then he collapses.

  
  


When he comes to, it’s early morning, and dark. His limbs hurt. 

Someone had laid him into the backseat of the truck with a rough towel underneath him. He sits up and yawns, stretching. Engineer and Pyro are in their usual spots in the front, and Dell is quietly snoring. He can’t be sure whether the latter is sleeping or not. 

Sniper is gone, and predictably, so is Spy - probably watching from a few yards away like some creep. Misha is asleep but Medic is nowhere to be found. 

He combs a hand through his dirty hair and grimaces. Despite it being nearly dawn, Soldier is already screaming, like how he usually is. Jeremy exits the truck and jogs in place a little to get his blood moving. 

“I hope you are okay, Scout!” Soldier yells, standing up in the truckbed. Tavish is laying down next to him, barely awake and clutching his sword like a teddy bear. “It would be a shame to lose such a good man on the battlefield!” 

“Yea, yea, I’m awake!” he smiles, wincing when Soldier claps him on the back with the ferocity of an overbearing father. 

Pyro opens the door and skips out, capeless. They reach into the backseat and pull out the towel he was sleeping on just a few minutes earlier to, tying it around their neck. 

“Yeah, Pyro here felt bad for you after… what happened.” Dell trails off, nervously pressing a finger to his temple. 

From on top of the truck, Spy materialises, and sits up. His suit is extremely wrinkled and his mask is slightly crooked, until he tugs it back into place and smooths out his front.

“Auugch!” yells Tavish.

“Auck!” Spy yells back, toppling on the edge of the roof. Jeremy would’ve liked to see him fall, but instead he just steadies himself and leaps off gracefully. “What did happen, by the way? I heard some loud noises last night. I expected Scout would get himself into trouble.” 

“No, I ain’t-” he starts, taking a deep breath. “There was one of those- those Scarecrows, y’know? What Pauling told us about?” 

Spy just looks at him with squinted eyes. 

“What he means Spy, is the jets,” Dell cuts in. “They’re a-” 

“-Gray’s trained pilots-” Sniper sighed. 

“ _ Mmpghh mmhdum- _ ” Pyro yells, hands flying faster than he can see.

“-atomic bomb!” declares Medic. 

“-and that’s why we need to take some precaution while headin’ in.” Dell finishes, a warm smile on his face. Everyone else stops talking all at once, looks at each other, and starts again. 

“The Scarecrows are part of an offensive unit! Gray has employed them to take down large areas at a time for testing,” Medic smiles, teeth showing. His glasses sit crooked on his nose. “Although testing for  _ what,  _ I am… not sure.”

“Whoah, woah,  _ stop, _ ” he screams. “Me and hardhat was there, ‘kay? It’s downright terrifyin’. They exploded the stage, killed someone, maybe killed more than one,  _ man. _ ” Jeremy stops to think and leans against the truck. “And get this- they was usin’ Demo’s grenades.”

“ _ WOT?! _ ” 

Tavish climbs over the planks on the edge of the truckbed and hangs his arms there for a few seconds. He tumbles down to the ground and is quick to right himself, legs shaky. 

“I cannae believe that  _ stinkin’  _ rat had the brain to steal one o’ my designs, it’s bloody criminal,” he harrumphs, running his tongue under his front teeth. “When I’m finished with them, there won’t be any of them left to deal with.”

“Hold it.” Dell says, raising a hand to signal for Tavish to stop talking. He doesn’t, and instead continues jabbering about authenticity of work under his breath. “We gotta plan this right. Scout and I saw what they can do. Wouldn’t do any good if one of us died, now would it?” 

“And I assume  _ you  _ are the one making this ‘plan’, laborer?” Spy glares. He takes another cigarette out and quickly lights it with a flick of his hand. He takes a drag and immediately starts coughing. Nobody moves to help him and it takes a good six seconds until he speaks. 

“ _ Who  _ put cannabis in my cigarette?!” he shrieks, voice rising above a range that Jeremy didn’t know existed until a second ago. 

Sniper laughs and picks up the blunt from the ground. It’s impressive and shockingly well-rolled for someone who pees in jas and lives out of a campervan. Spy starts to shake with anger. 

“Bushman, after this operation, I will gut you.” 

“Lookin’ forward to it, spook.” Sniper’s laugh turns into a howl as he tugs down his bandana and puts the blunt to his lips.

“I had no idea ye did the devil’s lettuce, Snipes.” Tavish remarks, raising his eyebrows. 

“When I was in my twenties I stayed in a hippie bus,” he says thoughtfully. “Wasn’t all that bad, I’d recommend it to all of you. Was an enlightening experience.” 

“I can see that. Now can you stop your riffraffing?” Spy narrows his eyes at Sniper and takes out another cigarette. He inspects it closely with suspicion in his eyes and then lights it, satisfied. “I should go ahead first. My disguise cloak will let me sneak in without suspicion.” 

Spy produces a headset out of seemingly nowhere and hands it to Jeremy. He takes it, nervously, and observes it. 

“This a trap?” he asks. 

“No.” he answers, and then takes it out of his hands. With a swift motion, Spy breaks it over his knee and gives him one half. The break is clean and reveals a slidable bit of plastic that fits securely over his cap. Spy leans over him to attach it. 

“You smell awful, man,” Jeremy grimaces and wrinkles his nose in disgust. The lingering scent of ash dots Spy’s suit. “I can’t believe ya got the gall to tell us that we’re ‘impudent pigs’ or whateva, then turn around and chainsmoke an entire pack! You have an addiction.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Spy deadpans and steps back. “At least I’m not as bad as Demoman. You will be taking the comm unit and going in after me. Once I relay back to you, call everyone else.” 

“How do I work this thing?” 

“Figure it out. I hope you’re smart enough for that.” is all Spy says before doing that white person half-jog and disappearing. 

“Well, y’all. Gray’s base is thataway.” Dell points to a little building just over the horizon. “If we hustle we’ll get there by eight.” 

“No truck?” Jeremy raises an eyebrow. 

“Nae. Miss Pauling told me it’d raise too much attention, an’ I agree.” Tavish states. “You will be headin’ on foot, but me and Soldier have alternate methods on traveling.” 

“That is true! We will be soaring like eagles, like Americans, in no time!” Soldier cheers, patriotic as ever. He hefts his rocket launcher off the truckbed and balances it on his shoulder. 

“Don’t make too much noise, ya hear-” Dell begins to say. Soldier shoots a rocket at his feet and screams as he flings into the air at alarming speeds. “Dammit.” 

“He gonna be okay?” Jeremy points to the sky where Soldier is quickly turning from a silhouette into a small speck. 

Tavish nods. 

Pyro unhooks their axe from their belt and raises it above their head, cheering. Tavish firmly shakes their hand and grabs his own grenade launchers, loading the one with a larger barrel with crude looking spiked bombs. 

“Stickybombs,” he proudly declares, moving away to give himself a wide berth. He shoots one at the ground and it flashes once, then remains still. “It’s me own craft.” 

With a simple click of a button on the stickybomb launcher, he flies upward and follows the same path as Soldier. Jeremy holds a hand over his eyes to block out the rising sun and tries to look. Actually freaking unbelievable. 

Rocket jumping wasn’t supposed to be real. He’s seen it in video games, he’s  _ played  _ it in video games, but in real life? Pretty fuckin’ cool, actually. 

Man, he misses video games. 

“Don’t worry son. Solly had me make him some new shoes to ah, reduce blast damage.” Dell says. He watches Sniper, Medic, and Misha start to walk ahead. Pyro follows close behind, tailing them. 

“Hey, thanks for savin’ my ass back there,” Jeremy says, sheepishly running a hand through his hair. “And don’t tell  _ anyone-  _ and I mean  _ anyone  _ that I started cryin’, kay?” 

“Don’t mention it. Let’s go, kid.” 

He punches Dell in the shoulder. “I’m a grown adult man, ya can’t call me that.” 

Dell only nods in response. Jeremy takes that as a ‘yes’ and dashes ahead, catching up with Pyro. They wave to him as he passes. 

  
  


The building is an amalgamation of shiny metal and splintered wood, jutting out at odd angles. The windows still have nails stuck in the sides, and a single board covers the one on the top floor. What he assumes is the front door is metal and heavy-looking, with no way to see in. 

“Well. This is it, I guess.” he says to no one in particular. With his cool and awesome, top tier running abilities, he’d made it to the base in record time. On the way, he’d passed Tavish and Soldier, who were fucking around in a bush by ogling at a lizard and screaming whenever it flicked its tongue. 

He feels the door and tries to search for anything hidden, but no compartments reveal themselves. The handle is broken clean off, and in its place is poor excuse of a paint job over the jagged metal. 

Jeremy checks the cracks between the wood and the door, then loops around the outside looking for any other entrance. Nothing, except for a cellar with a staircase that led to nowhere. 

A dove flies around his shoulders and for a split second he thinks it’s the dove from before, with the mutilated skin, but it looks completely normal. 

“Well,” he mutters. The hockey stick is taken out of his backpack and he winds up to swing at one of the windows. From where he is, he can barely see inside. Not a single light is on under the lower floor. “Here goes nothin’.” 

The window shatters with an earsplitting crack. Man, he’s never gonna get used to that. He’s broken plenty of windows, whether on accident or not, and it always startles him.

He takes a fresh roll of grip tape from his pack and mentally thanks Medic for making him pack it. The wrapping is poorly done, he still hasn’t mastered that, but he’ll ask Misha later how to properly do it after this mission. 

After a few more seconds rooting around in his backpack, he tugs out a bag. 

“What…” 

Oh, he remembers now. The person at the concert who made him sit down and measured his feet. What a weirdo. 

He takes the bag and tries to rip it open at first, until realizing that the ends are sealed shut with a colorful glitter glue. The swiss army knife sits heavy in his pocket until he takes it out and slices open the bag. 

Wow. Okay, wow. This is awesome. 

The sandals are brown and feel strong enough to be leather, but too uneven to be real leather. The straps are darker in color, and wings- of a fabric he can’t tell- are attached to the back. He immediately takes off his shoes. 

Well, if he was gonna wear these, he’d have to protect his feet. The desert ground is practically bullets to someone’s skin. He takes out the grip tape again and quickly wraps it over his feet, then tugs them on. 

Man, these things make him feel fast! With his newfound items, he picks away the stray glass on the edge of the window frame, and climbs inside. 


	10. KILLJOY FILES #1

NAME: Jacqueline

ALIAS: Jaxon Aultimate 

SEX: ?

AGE: 14 years 

D.O.B: 4/18/04

AFFILIATION: Killjoys

HEIGHT: 5’3” 

WEIGHT: ?

EYE COLOR: ?

HAIR COLOR: ?

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 

A short person with dyed purple hair in a ‘mullet’ hairstyle. Usually dressed in a suit. 

OTHER: 

Commony seen with Ranielle McGilbra. Unknown last name. Unknown race. Unknown lifestyle. Unknown pets. Unknown sex. Unknown eye color. Unknown hair color. Unknown location.

_ Last updated ???. _

NAME: Ranielle McGilbra 

ALIAS: Monstrr Energy 

SEX: F

AGE: 14 years

D.O.B: 7/21/04

AFFILIATION: GGC (Formerly), Killjoys 

HEIGHT: 5’7”

WEIGHT: 160 lbs 

EYE COLOR: Brown 

HAIR COLOR: Black 

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 

A person with curly dyed green hair. Usually dressed in a suit. 

OTHER: 

Commonly seen with Jacqueline. Former draculoid. Former hostage. Unknown lifestyle. Unknown pets. Unknown location.

_ Last updated 1/1/19 _


	11. TURN MY SWAG ON

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lmfaoo attention deficit

“Wh- augh!” 

He retracts his hand and sucks the blood off his thumb. A shelf is pressed up against the window, blocking him from entering properly. Sheets of metal are stacked on it. It’s decently heavy, but nothing he can’t handle. He quickly pushes it away and then falls inside. 

The floor is cold tile, as expected. Aside from what dust he can feel, it seems pretty clean. 

And dark too. Jeez, he should’ve thought to bring a flashlight. Jeremy fumbles along the wall for a lightswitch and smacks into something taller than him. 

It’s too dark to tell, but the fuzzy outlines of jagged machinery stands out to him. He raps on it a few times- it sounds hollow- and then turns away to do something else. 

After knocking into something similar again, he decides that instead of standing up straight, he’ll just crawl along the floor. It’d be more fun anyways, he thinks. The air is significantly colder inside and closer to the ground. 

His fingers come across mesh in the ground, a vent or grate of some kind. He peers inside to no avail - still too dark. Drats. 

In the quiet, he can hear himself muttering and whispering to himself. It just doesn’t do him any good if it’s completely silent. The absence of voices always pierces into his ears and irritates him until he can’t do anything anymore.

A doorway reveals itself to him when he kicks something with his leg. He turns to see what triggered the entrance - a button half-hidden by a mop. He covers it up with the mop again. 

Right, okay, what’s he supposed to do here? What did Spy tell him, again?

He continues to creep in through the building. The air is getting thicker now, and more full of smoke. Hey, does that mean Spy’s around? ‘Cause if Spy’s around, he could figure out what he’s actually supposed to accomplish here. 

The corridor is barely lit by a single light casting a medium glow onto the walkway, which seems to be a metal platform suspended to the ceiling. He looks up at the ceiling. 

Christ, that is way too high. He also looks down at the bottom. 

...There is no bottom from what he can see. Jeremy grits his teeth, bites his lip nervously, and holds his hands out in front of him to keep from bumping into anything. 

The platform creaks precariously under his weight and lurches only once until he makes it across to the other side. He’s thankful to finally be on top of secure ground and resists the urge to just sit there appreciating it. 

A glowing sign blinks at him a little further ahead. He sprints forward to it, not caring if his footsteps make noise, and squints at it. 

“B.. that’s… that’s a B. Okay,” he frowns. Maybe if he opens his eyes really wide he can read it. The letters look wrong to him, somehow. It’s not like in school where he can just memorize the passage the night before. “N,” he whispers. Wait, no. Not an N. Maybe a U. Upside-down lowercase N? “Fuck.” 

The word does a somersault. He glares at it for being silly.

“B, U. G. Bug? No way. Wait. Frick, bog. Bog, bug, bag? Bap?” Oh, this is a tricky one. “The, it’s like the, the, friggin’, in Teen Titans, the guy with the robot eye. His name.” 

Jeremy facepalms.  _ Cyborg.  _ That was it. The word is BORG, in all capitals. 

He takes a deep breath and pretends that whole thing never happened, then continues on. If Spy was back there watching him struggle, he’d get made fun of for the rest of his time here. 

Jeremy steps back from the sign, stands up straight, and continues walking. Two more rooms reveal themselves to him - one with a glowing sign over it and closed doors, and one that seems to be as dark as the very first one room. 

The glowing sign has a picture of stairs on it. He’s got a pretty good idea of what’s there. Second floor, or exit, maybe. He ignores that one and enters the second one. 

Without the windows here like before, he can’t see anything at all. Four bright blue glowing dots are perched up on the walls. 

“Man, friggin’, Spy shoulda been here by now,” he mumbles to himself. The silence is still too unnerving to walk around in. “I wonder- ooh!” 

Jeremy springs up and darts to the lever. It glows faintly amongst the rest of the room, lighting up the label next to it - a picture of a lightning bolt.

The lights flicker on before he can pull it. 

“I thought it would be longer before you mercenaries tried something,” someone says. He turns around and almost loses his footing from nerves, but rights himself. 

Almost every inch of the room is full of machines. Robots, more accurately. With glowing blue eyes and plates of metal covering their limbs. Spare bolts and parts are stored in pouches nailed to the walls. The robots shift slightly, the mechanical swivel ringing around the room. 

All of them have guns, and all of them are pointed at him. Jeremy backs away, his hands held up in surrender. He can hear his heartbeat thrumming. 

“Hey, hey, hey, guys, let’s all just- talk it- talk it out,” he laughs, turning his head to look at all of them. They stay put. “I’m a good guy. I’m one a’ you, I can-” 

He mimics a beeping sound and gives a pained smile. 

The robots part and a man in a wheelchair and business attire comes forward. Short black hair gelled firmly to his head and large gray glasses stay balanced on his nosebridge. 

“Hello, hello! My name is Cyrus,” says the man, proudly placing a hand on his chest. “And you’ve just entered Borg Industries.”

Jeremy hears the door slam shut. 

“My, ahh, creations aren’t completely finished yet. This one still needs arms,” Cyrus wheels over to one of the shorter ones and knocks it with his right hand, which is gloved. “And that one can’t seem to control its own explosives.” 

“Don’t be scared, Cyrus,” he snarks, puffing out his chest. “I can take all o’ ya anyday. I got weapons, ya’know. I could beat ya one to one.” 

Cyrus just looks at him with a patient smile and inputs a code in the wall. The robots lift their heads up from their resting positions to stare at him and point their guns. 

“Uh. Cya!”

He ducks under the line of robots and knocks one of their guns away. They swarm after him, metal legs clanging loudly against the ground. Their joints scrape with every movement. He jumps onto the desk at the end of the room and grabs one of the nail pouches, flinging them at the crowd of robots. 

One of them beeps erratically in response and spins in place a little, then falls over. Cyrus wheels backwards to avoid the damage. 

“Wait,” he yells while kicking one of their hands away from his feet. “Ya mean to tell me you didn’t bother to check if their  _ guns were even loaded?!”  _

“I, ah,” Cyrus pales considerably and raises his eyebrows. “It was something I overlooked.” 

“Hah, well, take this!” 

Jeremy takes a few seconds to take his scattergun from his pack and starts shooting the robots in the face. They quickly drop, then get back up again, only more oily-looking this time. He swivels on the desk to point the scattergun at Cyrus. 

Cyrus whips out his own gun from the wheelchair and Jeremy halts, just standing there. The robots get closer to his desk. 

“You wouldn’t shoot me, would you?” 

He grits his teeth and wavers. 

“I thought so,” Cyrus says, then aims at his leg, and fires. He watches the bullet travel towards him. It almost looks like it’s in slow motion. 

Then he jumps into the crowd of robots, narrowly avoiding the bullet, closes his eyes, and hopes that he won’t be ripped apart. He wills the universe to just maybe let him get out of his one alive. 

And he does. The air soars by him - he feels it on his hair and neck and arms. His legs are pushed up by some imaginary force and for a second, he feels like he’s flying. 

Then he crashes into the wall. 

“What are you doing?” Spy asks, appearing into the room. Jeremy turns around and wipes sweat off his forehead. Spy’s holding a device buzzing with electricity. Cyrus is gone, and all the robots are laying on the ground, broken. 

“Ayuah, auh, uhhh, nothin’!” 

“Mm,” is all Spy says. “My sapper. It can take down most buildings. The Engineer hates me for it.” he explains, tucking the device back into his coat. 

Jeremy stares wide-eyed at his shoes, wondering what the shoemaker had put in them to make him able to do that. Spy snaps his fingers imaptiently and reaches a hand out. 

“Really? You’re helpin’ me?” he asks in disbelief, taking it. Spy drops it the second they touch hands. “Hey!” 

“Your hands are disgusting,” Spy curls his lip up in disappointment. 

“Man, whatever,” Jeremy stands up on his own and brushes dust off his pants. The oil stains seem to be permanent for now. Not a big deal. “I didn’t want your stupid help anyway. So are we goin’ or what? We gonna kill ‘em all?” 

“Just hours ago you were complaining about killing the draculoids.” 

Jeremy shuts his mouth and taps on his comm. It buzzes to life. Medic’s voice rings out clear to him, but is quickly interrupted by Soldier. 

“Shh! Shh. Shut up Soldier. As I was saying, Scout, we are waiting for your signal.” 

“Well, I just found Spy, so-” 

“Come in. And take the front entrance. It should not be hard to find.” Spy cuts in, leaning so that he’s the same height as Jeremy. 

“We will be there shortly, maggot! Do not wait for us. Complete this mission in the name of America.” Soldier yells, before the comm is shut off on the other end. Jeremy taps the headphones twice and the static stops. 

“You took the back way.” 

“I- No one ever told me there was a front entrance!” he complains, kicking at one of the robot heads. It flops to the ground and clangs pathetically. “Nobody! Would it hurt to share summa that information you have in that skull o’ yours?” 

Spy shrugs and stifles a laugh. 

“I can’t believe we hafta work together. S’like you organized this plan on purpose to make us be aruond each other, just so you can annoy me.” 

“You annoy me too,” Spy snorts. “It’s just easier to hide when you aren’t a prepubescent teenage boy who cannot shut up.” 

“Hey! I ain’t-” 

Spy claps a hand over his mouth as they walk out the room. He makes note of the door that closed earlier, which is now laying dented on the ground with several bullet holes through it.

“So…” he begins, fidgeting with the corner of his shirt.

“So.” 

“So what’d ya do with Cyrus? Did you, ya’know-” He slides a finger across his neck and makes a  _ cchk  _ sound. 

“That… was a hologram,” Spy says, continuing to walk. Jeremy jogs to catch up. “Cyrus Borg is the least of our problems right now. It seems he’s the one manufacturing technology for Gray.” 

“Cyrus Borg? Ain’t that a little on the nose?” 

Spy says nothing. They walk in silence for a few minutes. 

“A-” 

“Could you shut up for once?” 

“C’mon man! I can’t deal with it, ‘s too quiet.” he complains. Spy glares at him from behind his mask and stops walking, leaning against the wall. “What?”

“Has it ever come to your attention that you may have ADHD?” 

“What? No, pfft,” Jeremy rolls his eyes and waves a hand in front of his face. “I’m too cool for that. Now where we heading?” 

“Hmm. The breaker room is a little more downstairs. Once we head there, and I turn on the lights, we will be moving up.”

“Right, okay,” he smiles, stretching his arms. “Moving up, yeaye, I know what that means.” 

“It means we will be doing what Miss Pauling specified. Taking out the draculoid unit and stealing supplies for ourselves. Did you not listen when she told us?”

“I, uh…  _ woah. _ ” 

  
  


The breaker room is one of the most confusing rooms he’s been in. Wires of every color stick out from boxes that are equally as colorful. It’s a nightmare, if the dozen switches and three dozen buttons are any indication. 

“So, this one…” He points to a green square-shaped button. 

“Wait, no, don’t touch that!” 

He presses it. 

Spy yells when one of the boxes begin to creak, then explodes in a small poof of smoke. Jeremy grins nervously and takes his hands away from the control panel. 

“You imbecile. I should have thought better than to bring you.” 

“I ain’t all that bad. I can run fast, I can shoot fast, I can think fast!” he argues, jogging in place. 

“You should work on that last one.” 

“Awh, screw off Spy.”

The door busts upon and a flood of light fills the breaker room. Jeremy has to cover his eyes from being blinded, and when it finally subsides a little, he squints to see. 

“Hello team! We turned on the lights and went through the front entrance!” 

“Soldier, I told you not to make too much noi- you turned on the lights?” Spy stops facepalming and looks up at the mercenary in disbelief. 

“Yes! It was right next to the front door,” Soldier grins, hooking an arm around Spy’s chin and cheering. “You frenchies should count on me more.”

“Hah! You missed the lightswitch,” he laughs, patting Spy on the head. 

Spy looks murderous. 

The rest of the team enters the room. Spy stands and shoves Soldier off of him, who returns back to Tavish’s side. 

“We’ve got no time to waste. Come!” 

  
  


As they ascend the stairs, Pyro lags behind with him. Their scarf is still tightly wrapped around the bottom of their mask, and their cape-towel flutters behind them. 

Their mask is still terrifying, and scuffed with wear. Small scratches of paint show and the filter is slightly misshapen. They seem to not mind, though, so he decides not to ask about it. 

They mumble something and then take their flaregun from their belt, flipping it over to show him. He cautiously takes it in his hand like its a bomb that’s about to go off any second and inspects it. Blue, shiny. Almost looks like a toy gun. 

He follows their gaze. They look around and at everyone walking a good three feet ahead of them, including Dell, who looks to be striking up conversation with Sniper about his gun. 

Then they open their filter with a click. 

“Wh-” 

“Shhh.” they say, putting a finger to their mask. He pales. 

“Dell tells me not to talk to any of you,” Their voice is rough and ashy, and from how close they are whispering to him, he can smell smoke on them. 

And, maybe even a little synthesized. There’s an edge of garble to it that he can’t place, but it sounds closer to a computer program than an actual person. They tap his shoulder. 

“You’re friendlier though and. And. Soldier and Demoman are too loud for me. Sniper doesn’t talk. I don’t like Spy. I know him. He is. He’s.” 

“He’s what?” Jeremy leans in with wide eyes. 

They slam their filter shut and take their flaregun back. A shiny gold lighter is brought out from the pockets of their orange jumpsuit and they begin flicking it. 

“Everythin’ alright back there?” asks Dell. 

Pyro nods.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you'd like to toss me a follow or dm me, all my socials are listed HERE: https://raveyard.carrd.co


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